Among the Stars: Part One - Taking Off
by The Lord of Chaos
Summary: Keith's not sure why no one else remembers their past lives, but he's pretty sure that he's not crazy. Lance totally doesn't have crushes on any of the guys who occasionally distract him from his studies. Hunk's pretty sure one of his roommates is breaking several laws. And Katie's going to find out what happened to her family, even if she has to become an international criminal.
1. Preflight

A/N: First in a series. Now that it's all over I wanted to redo things my way. Part one goes from childhood to our Paladins leaving earth. Very slow burn Klance. Some Shiro/Adam on the side. Trans Female Pidge. Soulmates. Implied Referenced Child Abuse, Minor Character Death. Implied Sexual Content.

Preflight

Shooting had been his Tío's idea.

"Nothing will teach you focus like a rifle," Tío Mateo had said.

The thought of it had been exciting, shooting a rifle like the soldiers in the old movies Marco used to watch. Mamá, though, had not approved.

"I need to do something," Lance had said. "I can't take my medication if I'm going to be a pilot, I need to show them I can get by without it."

Mamá hadn't approved, but Papá had talked her around eventually. Applications were still years away, and Lance was pretty sure that both of his parents thought it was a passing obsession, but they'd never discouraged him from pursuing anything, even when the last thing, model shipbuilding, had only lasted a couple of weeks.

He'd have rather been swimming at the beach every Saturday morning, but instead his limited free time off meds was spent at the range.

"Breathe in," Tío Mateo said. "And out." Learning to shoot wasn't a whole lot like the movies.

Lance pulled the trigger of his bolt action .22LR. A relic from Lance's Abuelo, it was about the most powerful weapon a civilian could own in Cuba. He didn't hear the metal ping down range.

"That was your trigger squeeze," Tío Mateo said. "You were anticipating the noise and you jerked your finger."

Lance groaned. If it wasn't his trigger finger, it was his breathing, if it wasn't his breathing, it was his sight picture, if it wasn't his sight picture it was his posture. There was too much to deal with at once.

"You'll get there chamaco," Tío Mateo said. "You just need patience."

"Did you have patience when you were in battle?" Lance asked, genuinely curious. He just couldn't fathom being in the middle of a gunfight and focusing on all those things at once.

Tío Mateo hesitated, but eventually he said, "Of course not." He looked almost ashamed to have said anything at all. "But you practice so much it's second nature, you focus until you don't need to focus anymore."

"What was it like?" Lance asked, knowing that he shouldn't.

Tío Mateo had fought in the Last War. It was something they learned about in History, and ever since he'd first heard of it he'd had a hard time reconciling his Tío in the context of something monumental. The thing was though, that it hadn't really been some big war of the ages, it had just been the last war, twenty years and counting. Mamá wouldn't let Tío Mateo talk about the war in front of Lance, but Lance had heard him telling Dad stories now and then. They were always sad, not like the shows he sees on TV. Lance thought that something really bad must have happened to him.

Tío Mateo shrugged. "War is crazy, Lance. You sort of know what you're going into, but you really don't, nothing can really prepare you, and when battle comes, it's a surprise. My first gunfight was over before I really realized what was going on. After that… I see that gleam in your eye, Lance. It isn't some glamorous thing. That's why we have the Global Initiative. I don't want the young to forget what war is, what it costs."

"Was it worth it?" Lance asked.

"No," Tío Mateo said, shaking his head. "It was a pointless thing." He paused and seemed to think about it. "Not all wars, maybe, some of them mattered. My papá's bisabuelo fought in the revolution that gave us democracy. Maybe that was worth it. I won't tell you there will never be a time in your life where duty will have you taking up arms, but don't be too eager for it. Whether it's worth it or not, it's a terrible price to pay."

"Do you think your war really was the last war?" Lance asked.

Tío Mateo sighed. "Who can say," he said. "We can hope. You know, the day you were born, it was the five years anniversary since the war ended, and people were so sure something would come along. It was the longest period of global peace in recorded history. Your bisabuelo had just died, so you were definitely going to be Lance if you were a boy, but you would have been Paloma if you'd been a girl. Maybe something to think about, peace bringer."

"So why the rifle?" Lance asked.

Tío Mateo shrugged. "Peace is wonderful," he said. "But I don't put all of my trust in it. Maybe war is over something stupid. Maybe what the countries are fighting over doesn't matter. Maybe there's a peaceful solution those in power won't consider because they won't be the ones fighting. At the end of the day, I didn't fight for some grand ideal. I fought because I was scared of what could happen to my family if we lost, if we lost everything. I fought for the people fighting next to me, who had become my brothers and sisters." He picked up Lance's rifle off the bench and ejected the spent shell casing. Handing it back to Lance he said, "come on, enough fundamentals for today. Let's see if you can get any more moving targets than you did last time."

He'd put on a smile, but it didn't reach his eyes. His eyes were distant.

"They're too fast," Lance said, stowing his rifle in its case so they could move on to the kinetic range where each lane had a programmable set of targets that popped up and down or moved across.

"You'll get there," Tío Mateo told him.

As they walked to the next range, Lance made sure to throw his arm around Tío Mateo. A few moments later, he felt Tío Mateo reach up and ruffle his hair and Lance thought he was probably feeling better. Lance started excitedly telling him about the latest girl that had caught his eye.

After the range, it was back home, where he helped out at the front desk and then folded about a hundred bedsheets with his cousin Frida. Luis was off touring colleges with a school friend's family so there was that much more work to go around. After lunch, it was time for his medication so he could study. During the week he would take a time released capsule in the morning, but over the weekend when he got time off his meds he could only take the four-hour dose if he wanted to sleep that night. When that wore off he struggled for another hour until dinner. Struggling was good. That was where progress came from. There were a hundred different tricks Lance had learned over the years to help him learn, but at the end of the day, he needed to be able to get by without them.

Dinner was always a family affair, at least for everyone who wasn't working, which was why shifts in the family's hotel were so heavily rotated. Everyone should get to have dinner with everyone. Of course, even with people pulling shifts in the kitchen or the front desk there were still a lot of people at the table. Even so, Tía Elena had been in charge of cooking that night so Lance went prepared to eat a lot.

"Do you still have time for the twins' swim lesson?" Marco asked over a loud disagreement between cousin Jorge and Miguel. It was a polite way to ask him if he'd remembered.

"I sure do," said Lance. "Not a problem; they're headed for the Olympics." They were five, and Lance had promised his brother that they'd be swimming just fine by the end of the Summer.

"I'm going to dunk you!" Rolando announced.

"Go for it, buddy," Lance said.

Rolando gave a firm nod, like it was a plan, and went back to his plain cheese quesadilla (one of the only thing's they could get him to eat).

Rolando and Camila weren't quite ready for the Olympics. Rolando still needed the kickboard, and Camila couldn't float to save her life but Lance was confident that they'd get the hang of it soon enough. Rolando, all twenty kilograms of him, did not manage to dunk Lance, but he let him think he'd gotten close.

After swimming was more studying for the entrance exam. It was way too late to take his meds and he felt like it was the hardest thing in the world. When he realized he'd been staring at the same paragraph for a good ten minutes while he daydreamed about finding a sea monster at the beach, he decided to give in and pull up Youtube. It was one of his tricks, when he had trouble with the book. He also thought it was cheating, since he was trying to teach himself to get by without his meds or his tricks, but he still needed to learn. There were a few channels where they explained different things in math and science, and he'd found ones where they made everything just right. The Youtuber had an excited way of talking, and the font on the screen really popped and grabbed his attention. It was cheating, but by the time he was ready to call it quits, he had a fairly good grasp of how to break down a polynomial. The thing was, it wasn't really studying for the entrance exam. He was studying for the classes he'd be taking the next year, which he'd have to ace if he was going to get into decent classes come high school, which was already a stretch, because everywhere he went, they took one look at his record and saw 'Severe ADHD' and wrote him off. But that was fine, because Lance was going to kick every exam's ass until he got to the Garrison.

"You know, you joke about it," Veronica said the next day after Lance had complained about the studying. "But you could actually get to the Olympics if you focused on your swimming. Coach Isidro called Papá. He wants you back on the team."

Lance had come in first for his age group at his last swim meet. Coach had been really excited, Mamá had made his favorite tostones, and everyone had acted like Lance had accomplished something; that had felt great, but it never really did feel like an accomplishment. So he was good at swimming. So what? Swimming was fun, it came naturally to him, it wasn't something he'd worked hard for. It wasn't something anyone had ever told him he couldn't do.

"I'm going to space," Lance said, shaking his head. "I don't have time for that anymore."

"You could talk to Mama about your hours in the hotel," Veronica said.

"She's losing you in a month, and then she loses me in a few years," Lance said. "Carla is talking about going to college in the capital, and Luis might go to that school in Mexico. I'm not doing that to the family."

"We can afford it," Veronica said. "I've seen the books, we could definitely hire more staff. We're just free labor. Honestly, I'm pretty sure they just think it builds character."

Lance shrugged. "You don't think I can make it?"

"Of course I think you can make it," Veronica said. "I just think you're miserable."

"Well, I haven't sat in the pilot's seat yet," Lance said. "I know it's going to be worth it."

"I've wondered…" Veronica said.

"I'm not just following you to the Garrison," Lance said.

"Okay."

"I'm going to be a pilot, not a science officer."

Veronica didn't say anything.

"I really just want to do this," Lance said.

"Because you want to be a pilot?" Veronica asked.

It had been a whim, putting the Galaxy Garrison on his pre-middle school aptitude test. Sure, he'd always loved space, but it hadn't been his fascination with space travel, or his love of the stars when he snuck out at night to go float in the water and stare up at the heavens, it hadn't even been because of Veronica's own aspirations. There'd been an event the day before that had been on the news. This pilot, Takashi Shirogane, had somehow managed to land on Mars after a meteor had taken out half his onboard systems and left him with less than a third of an atmosphere of air pressure. He'd saved his ship, his crew, and his passengers. The news had loved it all, and they showed clips of the pilot from when he'd been in the academy and representing the Garrison at a cool martial arts competition. Lance thought he had looked really super cool. The whole thing was cool. Lance wanted to be that cool. Lance wanted that sort of adventure. It had just been a whim, like model shipbuilding, and archery before that, and like becoming a world-famous wrestler when he'd been ten. It had been a whim, but being told he should aim lower by the career counselor had ignited a drive in him that had before only been a despondent acceptance of everyone's lowered expectations.

"Because I can be a pilot," Lance said.

It had almost been a year since he'd declared that he was going to go to the Galaxy Garrison and learn to fly in space. Even with the near constant struggle, the disappointing test results, and the tantalizing distractions he had to ignore in favor of working on boring math and learning English, even with all of that, Lance still pushed through, and when his seventh-grade report card had come home, Mamá had actually looked impressed. She'd made Lance's favorite dessert that night, budin de pan, even though she usually only made it around the holidays.

After so long without moving on to something else, the family seemed to accept that the Garrison was something Lance would be chasing for a while. Mamá still didn't like the shooting. Lance wasn't sure if learning to focus when he was holding a rifle had led to him doing better in his studies, or if the time he spent studying when he was off his meds had helped him focus when he was shooting, but he had kept up with it and he was getting better at both. It was nice to spend time with Tío Mateo, who usually didn't talk too much at home.

"There's a competition coming up," Tío Mateo told Lance while they cleaned the rifle one day as Summer was hitting its peak. "They've got a bracket for under thirteen."

"I'm not that good," Lance said.

"You're getting good," Tío Mateo said.

"Not good enough for a competition," Lance said.

"You don't have to win," Tío Mateo said. "Competition can be friendly. Besides, there're plenty of people who will tell you that you can't do something. You shouldn't be one of them. Show confidence and you'll do better."

"I'm still not going to do any good," Lance said.

"We'll see," Tío Mateo said.

There wasn't a very big gun culture in Cuba. Seeing some of the movies from America was just weird, how much everyone seemed to be obsessed with guns, but there were a good fifty people there entered into the competition, most of them his Tío's age. Lance wondered if they'd all fought in the war too.

Lance did better than some. Not coming in anywhere near last was nice, but he wasn't exactly close to winning either. It was actually fun though. The meet was a couple hours drive away from Varadero, and there were a number of kids his own age there who it was cool to meet. The guy who won in the next higher age bracket though was really cool, his name was Enrique. Lance was sure to watch him when it was his turn at the line. He looked like he belonged in some sort of teen action movie when he held his rifle and got all focused, and he was in the bracket Lance would be in the next year. He hoped he looked that cool by next year.

"Did you make any friends?" Tío Mateo asked as they left.

It had been the first time in a while that Lance had felt he could relax and talk to kids his own age outside of school. He hadn't realized how much he'd missed that. He used to be a social butterfly, but these days he was a hermit.

"Yeah, there were a lot of cool guys there," Lance said. He had always been good at making friends and he had drunk in the attention when he had had it.

"I saw you talking to that girl from Havana," Tío Mateo said.

Lance blushed. "Someone told me to show confidence."

He'd seen Enrique chatting with a couple of the older girls, and how they'd smiled at him.

"So did you have fun?"

"It was sort of awkward," Lance said.

"With the meet, chamaco."

"Oh," Lance said. "Yeah, it was really fun actually. Can we do it again next year?"

"There are more meets throughout the year, but yeah, we can do this again," Tío Mateo said. "You can try talking to girls again too, even if it's awkward. Don't let something being awkward stop you from putting yourself out there. You know your papá was quite the ladies man when he was younger, let me tell you."

Papá never really talked about himself from when he was younger, so Lance definitely let him tell him every detail he could get. The drive was nice. Tío Mateo told a lot of stories from when he and Papá had been younger, and he had a lot of advice about girls. Even though he never seemed to have a girlfriend for very long himself, he always seemed to have one.

It was pretty close to dinner time, but Papá put him to work cleaning up around the pool when they get back, and Lance tried making small talk with a couple of older girls in bikinis. They'd laughed at him, but like he was their cute nephew and not like he was some suave smooth talker who'd just told a good joke. Veronica came to call him in for supper.

"Who was that?" Veronica teased.

"Oh my god, none of your business," Lance said.

"Well there goes the Garrison," Veronica said. "Who has time for studying when there are cute girls at the pool?"

"Hey," Lance said. "I can do both."

"We'll see," Veronica said.

"What about you?" Lance asked. "Is Estevan too much of a distraction for you?"

Veronica shushed him, and looked around as if papá was hiding behind one of the planters. Lance grinned at her, a dare to bring up the girls by the pool at dinner. It was Tío Mateo who betrayed him that night around the table though. Mamá didn't look like she was ready for Lance to be showing any sort of interest in girls and after Camila had asked loudly if Lance had a girlfriend she had changed the subject and asked how the meet had gone, even though she didn't ever like talking about Lance's marksmanship.

"Lance," Teresa asked. "Marco and I are helping with the banquet tonight."

"I can babysit," Lance assured her. He turned to the twins. "Do you two want to be astronauts tonight?"

"Yeah!" Rolando exclaimed.

The summer came to an end eventually, and the tourist season died down too. The twins could swim the entire length of the pool and Lance thought he was prouder than Marco. Lance started the eighth grade and focused on showing that he could handle Geometry the next year.

It was a constant struggle, but Lance did make it into Geometry, and pre-Calculus the year after that, as well as an introductory physics class. The next couple of years also saw more meets and Lance chased after Enrique's first place until Enrique bumped to the over eighteen bracket. Somewhere along the way, shooting had become easy. Something he didn't have to think about. He focused on what he was doing and it was like everything else disappeared. If only physics could be like that. Eventually though, meets became too much of a commitment as the entrance exams started to come ridiculously close. Lance was spending a lot more time off his meds and struggling to focus off of them as well as he did on them. Saturday mornings were still reserved for Tío Mateo though.

* * *

His dad used to say he had an overactive imagination. He'd say it with a chuckle and a shake of his head as he ruffled Keith's hair. At least, when Keith was really young he did. When he got older, his dad would give him strange looks whenever he talked about it. Strange looks that said he was worried, that said that something was wrong. Keith stopped talking about the memories when he was eight. He supposed that he had probably brought it up with a classmate or two when he was little, but when his dad died two years later, Keith supposed that it really was a secret that only he knew.

It didn't take him too long to realize that no one else had the memories, that no one else remembered living other lives; remembered growing up, remembered friends who were long gone, remembered funerals for countless fathers, remembered dying. He'd been seven, getting chased by a dog and thinking he was about to be killed, when he remembered staring down at a smoking hole in his chest.

He heard of reincarnation for the first time when he was eleven. Whichever foster mom he'd been with that day had decided he needed to connect with his roots, though her solution to that was to get him a few books from the library about Asia. Only one had actually been about Korea. There had been a rather large Korean diaspora in Austin since the collapse of the Kim dynasty, but Keith and his dad had never really been involved with it outside of a few cultural events. He wasn't sure about his mom, but he was pretty sure his dad had been somewhere beyond third generation. He'd grown up a Texan.

Keith had looked through the books though. They'd taken away his outdoor privileges after his most recent fight at school so it had been something to do. It was a chapter on Buddhism that had caught his eye. When he read about reincarnation, he knew what those memories were. It didn't matter that no one else seemed to remember theirs, he knew what he was remembering. Once he had that, that confirmation that the memories were real and that they meant something, it put a lot of things into perspective. That was when he decided what he was going to do with his life. He was going to go to space.

It wasn't like he had complete recollections of everything. Some lives were just bare flashes of remembrance. Some lives he could tell were terribly long ago, but others were recent. Others felt fresh. For the most part though, memories seemed to be triggered. Something would remind him of a memory from long ago and suddenly it would be as though it was a memory he had held for his whole life. One thing about the memories though, was that most of them were definitely not from lives lived on Earth. When he'd been six, he'd seen a show about people on a spaceship, and he had suddenly remembered flying between the stars himself. He had also had a couple of extra arms in that memory, though.

This had made things very awkward when they got sex ed at school, and he suddenly remembered a lot of things about puberty from a lot of different species and became thoroughly confused. Alternatively, it could be really helpful. Oftentimes in school, some concepts just clicked, not so much that he remembered learning them already, but more like it was something he'd forgotten and just needed a refresher course.

He knew that there was so much more out there, beyond the sky, beyond the stars; and now that he felt that he had some sort of confirmation that these recollections were something more than his own overactive imagination, he knew he had to get there. Earth was where he had grown up with an absentee mom, where his dad had died, where he'd been tossed around time and again from foster family to foster family till he didn't really know what family meant outside of his memories of past lives. Earth was where no one really understood him or what was in his head. For a boy who didn't feel like he fit in on Earth, getting into space felt like the ultimate goal. There were people out there like him. People who remembered their past lives. There was more to it, something at the edge of his memory, an ineffable need that was driving him, but he couldn't shake it loose.

When he was fourteen and he was placed with the Shirogane family, he thought it was the best break he'd gotten in a long time that his foster brother was a pilot stationed at the Galaxy Garrison. Every time Shiro would visit home for a holiday or a weekend, Keith would grill him for details about the program, about the Mars colony he'd been stationed at for two years, about the Hyper Relativistic Drive research which might someday send mankind to the stars.

A year later, he was accepted to the Garrison for training as a cadet. Learning history had always been hard for Keith; he had so many different histories in his head. So was English class; he'd spoken so many languages and the rules of grammar got garbled. But there were some concepts in science, math, and engineering that were somewhat universal across species, and Keith just found that the concepts slid right into his brain like there was a slot waiting for them. Fortunately, the Garrison didn't test on History, and they only cared about his ability to understand English enough to handle classes. Shiro took leave the two weeks before Keith was set to arrive for training. He would be launching about five months later for Kerberos; the farthest out any human had ever traveled from Earth. He spent a lot of time with his parents, to make up for all the time they would be apart, but every morning he'd drag Keith out of bed to go to the park. He'd have more time for studying, Shiro explained, if he didn't have to worry too much about the physical fitness requirements while he was at the Garrison. Shiro didn't exactly act like a drill instructor, but he made sure Keith was some semblance of fit during the time they had.

Shiro reminded him of Kohvar and James, two older brothers he'd had in past lives, and Keith wished that he could have had Shiro in his life since he had been little and struggling through everything. He was the closest thing to family Keith had had in a long time. He wished he could ask him why he had bothered to look out for the aloof kid his parents had decided to foster.

When it was time to leave with Shiro at the end of those two weeks, he was almost sad to pack up and leave the Shirogane house, it was the longest he had ever stayed anywhere while in the system.

* * *

"You need to have patience, Aputi," Sefina said

"But it's been so long," Hunk complained. "Also, I told you to call me Hunk."

"And I told you, you can't give yourself a nickname," Sefina said.

"Oh, leave the boy be," Momma Talia said. "Hunk," she said very deliberately. "The roast will be done when it is done. If you don't have patience, the meat will be tough."

Hunk gave a long-suffering sigh and cast a disparaging look at the oven.

"Come on," Momma Talia said. "You can help me make dessert."

"Strawberry soufflé," Hunk said without hesitation.

"I don't think you have the patience for a soufflé," Sefina said with a laugh in her voice.

"I do too," Hunk assured her.

"Well then why don't you start separating eggs," Mamma Talia said.

Hunk hurried over to the refrigerator and got out the egg basket. Patience had always been something he had struggled with.

Six years later, when he announced that he had taken the preliminary entrance exam for the Galaxy Garrison his entire family had been flummoxed until he'd explained why.

"You're afraid of everything," Sefina said.

"I am not afraid of everything," Hunk said.

"You want to go to space?" Momma Natia asked.

"Well I don't want to go to space," Hunk said. "But it's the only way to get hands-on experience with the latest tech. They'll take me next year, when I'm fifteen. If I go the conventional route, I won't even get close to anything like this until I'm in my twenties. That's forever away."

"Space is dangerous, manamea" Mamma Talia said.

That gave Hunk pause, because he knew very well that space was dangerous. He'd spent plenty of time lying awake over the past month thinking of how dangerous space was.

"Garrison engineers get fast-tracked into some of the best companies," he said. "The Galaxy Garrison is where things happen. There's no waiting for tomorrow. I do my time in space and then I've got a cushy lab job designing flight systems, or telemetry sensors, or who knows what."

Of course, after he had taken the preliminary test he started getting calls from the recruiters. The Galaxy Garrison was highly selective, but they were also expanding, which meant they needed as many bodies as they could get into the program. The thing about space travel though was that it looked glamorous as heck, but in reality it basically sucked. Spaceships were cramped, the lunar base and Mars bases were all miserable places to live, and Hunk was pretty sure he'd go stir crazy if he ever got placed on Mars Station. Also, it was frickin dangerous.

Oh sure, there were luxury trips to orbit for the wealthy tourist. The really rich might visit the lunar base and do a moonwalk, but no one actually wanted to live there except the people who really loved what they did, and even they didn't want to stay for too long. So when someone passed the preliminary test and actually showed an interest the recruiters were all over it.

No one had actually told Hunk that he couldn't go join the Galaxy Garrison. They were still discussing it. Or rather, Mamma Talia was casually leaving space disaster movies running on the television, and Mamma Natia kept finding science and engineering magnet schools to try and tempt him with. Hunk, though, had the curriculum for the Garrison's engineering program and nothing compared. Until he could give an actual yes though, the recruiters were going to keep calling.

In the end, no one actually told Hunk that he could go join the Galaxy Garrison. A mobile testing center came to the island to find recruits for the next cycle and when the recruitment team called to see if he needed a ride to get there, Momma Natia just said that she would drive. The trip was unusually silent.

"They said I'd probably be here all day," Hunk said. "I'll call you."

Momma Natia nodded and reached over to hug him. She smoothed down his hair.

"You should go before I decide to drive off with you," she said.

Hunk nodded and got out. "I'm going to be alright," he said.

The written exam felt like a bit of a formality. Hunk had never been particularly modest and he knew full well that he was considered gifted. He was a bit disappointed in the end when he sat in front of a recruiter who told him he'd have to wait for over a month to find out if he'd gotten in.

"My test scores though?" Hunk asked.

"Oh, you scored in the ninety-ninth percentile," his recruiter said. "And you met the baseline for everything else. I'll tell you, I've never seen anyone with your test scores not get in, but we've got a lot more stops to make and a lot more people to test. That being said you should start planning as if you got in. Most likely, you're going to get sent to the American Division for the flight engineering program, maybe Europe, though their program is smaller. I've got a checklist for you, just some things that'll make your final application process easier when you're officially admitted."

"I was actually hoping to get into the Asia Division, their developmental engineering track's a bit more my speed," Hunk said.

His recruiter checked his screen and shook his head. "Yeah, your aptitude testing's great for that, but you're flagged for fitness. The development program funnels into the lunar base; that's a year at least. Galaxy Garrison won't let you spend that much time in low gravity, makes returning home hazardous to your health. You met baseline for entry to the flight program; you'll spend plenty of time on Earth in-between missions, and they'll get you ready for the flight fitness test while you're in training."

"What if I get better?"

"Our recruitment cycle ends in one month; that's when you sign on the dotted line and we make our assignments. That's not enough time. Now, we occasionally do transfers. First-year engineering classes are largely similar for flight and development tracks. If you can meet the standard by then you've got a shot at a transfer, if there's a slot."

"If I don't transfer," Hunk said. "How much time in space before I can get a posting on Earth and switch to development."

"At least a year," his recruiter said. "You've got a four-year commitment after your training, and most people don't get full-time slots earthside until they reenlist. The Galaxy Garrison trains people to go into space, you'd need to show that you're worth more on the ground than in a ship."

"That'll be easy," Hunk said.

"I'm sure it will be," his recruiter said, standing up. He extended his hand. "Really though, the wait is a formality. Welcome aboard cadet."

Hunk shook his hand but frowned. He had momentum at the moment. He could have probably gotten parental signatures, but who knew what would happen within the next month. He'd been selling them on the idea that the lunar base was way safer than the flight program, so there was another hurdle. He'd just have to work out a lot… while he waited.

* * *

When it was time to take the entrance exam, his recruiter came and picked him up and drove him to Havana where he'd be staying in a motel. Lance was going to have to go in on two separate days for tests. He was allowed to take the written exam while he was on his meds, but the flight aptitude test had to be done without any sort of aid. They were literally going to do a blood test in the morning to make sure the levels of the meds in his system were low enough.

The nice thing was that the written exam was graded instantly. He was ecstatic to find that he had scored in the 97th percentile. His recruiter told him that he'd scored well enough to get into the engineering track if the flight aptitude test didn't pan out. He told him that right after telling him that plenty of normal kids didn't even pass. Lance resisted the angry words on the tip of his tongue even as he felt the nervous pit in his stomach grow bigger. He spent the rest of the evening fantasizing about all of the things he'd have liked to have said to that in his head.

The following morning, before the flight aptitude test, he went through a very extensive flight physical that included everything from multiple blood tests, to running on a treadmill with a heart monitor, to a g-force test, to a flexibility test, and then finally after a very lengthy and invasive medical questionnaire he got a very invasive physical with an old doctor who poked and prodded him all over.

Finally though, he got to the aptitude test. It wasn't a flight simulation; rather it was a battery of tests that evaluated his spatial reasoning, hand-eye coordination, reaction time, memory, and most importantly, his ability to focus. When he got to the last test he started breathing like he was on the range. In and out, in and out, let the rest of the world disappear, in and out; the whole while there were clips from all sorts of television shows on the screen in front of him while he was supposed to be listening to a series of tones. Every time there were three tones in a row he was supposed to push a button. Probably the most difficult thing was that the three-tone sequences were few and far between, with plenty of other tones randomly put in. It was easy to lose focus like that.

The results of his flight aptitude test were not instantaneous, though they were lucky. The Galaxy Garrison was at the end of their recruitment cycle, so he'd find out the following day whether or not he would have a slot. That night his recruiter took him and a couple of other test takers out for dinner and let them run around one of the more touristy areas of the capitol. Veronica called him that night, all the way from Arizona.

"Did you find aliens?" Lance asked.

"Well they wouldn't tell a cadet if they did," Veronica said. "Did you find a girlfriend?"

Lance groaned. "Heidi said she'd go to winter formal with me," he mumbled.

"That's great," Veronica said. "Who's Heidi? Send pictures."

"There's no pictures," Lance said. He wasn't going to tell Veronica that the only picture he had of Heidi was from right after she'd insisted on teaching him how to take care of his skin so that she could be seen with him at the dance. The picture was of the two of them with all sorts of goop on their faces and cucumber slices over their eyes. It had been oddly nice, but there was no way Veronica was ever seeing the picture. "How's the desert?"

"Terrible," Veronica said. "How did your test go?"

Lance huffed. "They haven't told me about the aptitude test yet."

"How do you think you did?" Veronica asked.

"Well obviously I did great," Lance lied.

"That's wonderful," Veronica said. "What about the written exam?"

"Ninety-seventh," Lance said.

Veronica practically screamed. "Lanceito that's great. I'm so proud of you. I can't wait to be your upperclassman."

Lance let himself take the compliment. He didn't tell her about the comment his recruiter had made. They talked for over an hour, and Lance grilled her on the specifics of living at the Garrison. By the time he was done with the call he had calmed down and anxiety over the test results had gone to the wayside. He spent the rest of the night making friends with the other two recruits he was sharing the hotel room with. Raul had applied for the engineering track and Silvio was a competitor for a pilot slot. They were both super cool, and hanging out with them definitely helped keep him from worrying. That night though, after the others had gone to bed, Lance stayed awake for a very long time.

The following morning he skipped breakfast and stayed silent on the drive over to the intake center. Sitting in the waiting room was torture.

"Lance Sanchez," the woman was wearing a Galaxy Garrison officer's uniform. Lance felt his stomach drop as he got to his feet. He followed her into a small office where he could see a file folder with his photo clipped to the cover.

"First, I'd like to congratulate you, the Galaxy Garrison would like to invite you to join our next cycle as a pilot candidate."

Lance was speechless for a moment.

"I got in?" he asked.

"You did."

"I'm going to be a fighter pilot!" Lance exclaimed.

"Well, no," she said, bringing Lance up short. "You did very well, on all of your tests really, but you didn't quite meet the bar for the fighter pilot program. There is a spot for you in our support program though. I know it isn't quite as glamorous, but if you pass the program you'll be going to space. The program is only getting bigger, and there's plenty of important work for cargo pilots and telemetry pilots and the like. Now, we have a few things to go over. You need to understand your post-training commitment, and we're going to need to get your parents' final sign-off. You have a fairly sizable checklist you've got to take care of before you ship out."

Lance made sure to take notes while she talked. A lot of it he knew already from Veronica, and he wasn't worried about being ready for the physical fitness aspects. Veronica had already had him researching customs and courtesies, like when to salute, or when to call a room to attention, and when to call people by their rank rather than their position.

When she was done going over the checklist she talked to him about his medication while he was at the Garrison. He wouldn't be in charge of when he took it, he'd have to go to medical every morning for his meds, and he wasn't allowed to take it for certain tests and exercises. He'd expected something like that, but he'd hoped he could at least manage it himself.

"Any questions?" she asked at the end.

"What do I need to do to transfer to the fighter pilot program?" Lance asked. "Um, ma'am."

She paused. "That's rare," she said. "It's not undoable, but every class is filled by the time the school year starts. To transfer in, someone else would have to be transferred out. After that, you would need to be at the top of your class and retake the flight aptitude test to show you had significantly improved."

"I can do that," Lance said.

"I'm sure you can," she said. "But as I said, it's rare. We encourage all of our cadets to do their best, but it's important to focus on attainable goals. If you want to shoot for the top of your class, that's wonderful, we want all of our cadets to shoot for the top, but don't be disappointed when there isn't a fighter pilot seat waiting for you."

"Was there any part of the test that I should focus on, ma'am?" Lance asked.

She looked at his file. "Focus," she said.

Lance nodded, it wasn't unexpected.

"Of course all of our cadets have room for improvement, in all areas. So don't just rely on that one thing."

"I'm going to make it," Lance said.

"That's good to hear." She stood up with her hand out. Lance stood up and shook it. "Congratulations again, Mr. Sanchez."

"Thank you, ma'am."

It felt really weird to be disappointed after getting in.

The ride back was a bit awkward since Silvio hadn't gotten a slot. Raul was going to be an engineer though. He put on a big grin when he got home. He'd already texted his acceptance out to everyone and there was a party already in swing when he got out of the car. Mamá seemed a bit teary-eyed whenever Lance saw her.

The following day he was back to school, but he'd decided to stop taking his meds. He hadn't told anyone about that, but he needed to start improving. Mindfulness had never worked for him when he'd been younger, but after his first day at school off meds, he decided to pull up the guided audio files that were still on his computer. They were obviously for much younger children but he managed to get through the first track before he looked up a podcast on mindfulness that was more for adults.

He already used exercise as a coping tool, particularly before homework, but a week after he stopped taking his meds he started swimming laps before school and grabbing a quick breakfast to go. His appetite had improved without them, which Mamá definitely approved of, though she didn't know it was because he had stopped taking his meds.

Results varied. His stress level had definitely gone up. After forgetting a couple of assignments he started relying heavily on a to-do list and timers and alarms. Tío Mateo was the only one he told about his meds. They still went shooting on Saturdays. He was a great source of knowledge on dealing with stress. Lance started focusing on getting as much sleep as he was supposed to and self-care. Probably the only good thing from his brief stint at trying to date Heidi was that she'd indoctrinated in him a fairly comprehensive skincare regime that he'd turned into a nightly ritual. It was oddly calming after a full day of struggling through classes and homework, and actual work for the hotel. On top of that, he'd budgeted away a half an hour a day for video games.

The arrival of Summer vacation was a huge relief. It was also his last full summer vacation. The garrison only had two weeks off after Fall and Spring quarters and one week off after Winter and Summer. He went to a couple of marksmanship meets and in his last one, he managed to qualify for nationals, which was moot, since those would be in the fall. It was a nice accomplishment to end the summer with though.

Veronica came back for the last week of the summer and when Mamá wasn't hugging them, and the twins weren't commanding their attention, she drilled him on all the little things it was better to learn before he was in a military environment. The night before they drove out to Havana for their flight, there were tears, and there were lectures, and at the end of the night, when he went to bed, he found himself ruining his face mask with tears as he thought about all the time he was going to be away from home.

"Are you ready," Papá asked the next morning. He wasn't sure if he was talking about school or the first plane trip of his life. For someone who was shooting for the stars, he'd spent a lot of time on the ground.

"I've been ready for the last three years," Lance said. "Just you wait, I'll send you pictures of the rankings when I get to the top."

"Your mother wants a picture of you in your uniform," Papá said.

"I'll make sure to get one," Veronica said. "Right after I get a few shots of Lance getting smoked in hell week."

Lance groaned.

The plane ride was painfully uneventful, and the maglev from Los Angeles to Tucson felt like it was too fast to really enjoy taking in the scenery and the fact that he was in a completely different country. Lance didn't get much time once they disembarked. He got scooped up and labeled as a new recruit and before he knew it, he'd already seen the last of Veronica for a week.

* * *

Katie sort of hated space when she was younger. Periodically throughout her childhood it would take her father away for months at a time. Living in base housing meant going to base schools where all the other kids had parents who were in the program, and it baffled her sometimes how some of them would boast about what their parents did, like it was great that their mommy was doing research on Mars, or that their daddy was collecting dust from Saturns rings. If space was so great, then somebody else's daddy should have gone to go explore it.

She remembered being six, and Matt had had to beg her to go say good bye to their father before he left for another three months. Of all the things in their lives that they shared, space was the only thing that she and Matt didn't mesh on. Matt was probably one of those kids on the playground who boasted that his daddy went to space. The thing was though, that she and Matt had always gotten along. He'd always gotten her, he'd always had her back. If there was one thing she boasted about on the playground it was that she had the best big brother in the world.

Matt was smart, the smartest in his class, and he had included Katie in his love for science since she had been really young. He taught her how to code, he taught her the true scientific method, he taught her how to make a fusion reactor in their garage only a few years after he'd bought her her first chemistry set for her seventh birthday. The one thing he had never been able to teach her was to share his love of space. There were plenty of interesting scientific discoveries to be made out there, but Pidge couldn't see why they couldn't just send probes. People belonged on Earth.

Matt had always gotten her though. She'd been opening up presents at Christmas when she was five and when she'd opened up Matt's present to find a dress, she'd been caught off guard. Her parents had thought it was a mean joke and had immediately started scolding him, but when she'd realized that it was a dress, and that it was for her, and that she could wear it she had hugged him while screaming like a banshee and ran to her room to try it on, and her parents had realized that they were out of the loop.

Matt had always gotten her, and he'd always had her back, so when he announced that he would be applying to the Garrison when she was eight she'd felt betrayed. It had been around that same time that her dad had gotten stationed long term back on Earth though so a part of her felt like she had to trade them back and forth to keep them in her life.

In the end though, she'd been eight. It was hard having the most important person in her life leave like that, even when he was only moving to the other side of the base. Then his first quarter ended and he came home and after that he had weekend privileges. Somewhere along the way she got used to it. Dad was home every evening, Matt came home on the weekends and in-between quarters and they worked on science together, and played video games, and went exploring, and eventually they built a fusion reactor in the freaking garage, and somewhere along the way she found that she could love the joy that Matt got from space, even if it was going to take him from her. He loved it, and he loved her, and just like their dad, he would come back.

Matt left Earth for the first time when she was twelve, and of course she had hated it, but he'd been so excited, so a part of her had gotten excited for him. Of course he'd had to go off and do something stupid, like analyze sensor data on Kerberos and realize that there were signs of deuterium and got himself selected to be on the team that first went out there, and so he was going to be gone for more than a year.

It had been hard to be happy for him. It had been hard not to hack into the Garrison's systems and delete his entire personnel file. And of course, it wasn't just him. Their dad was the one who was leading the mission. The only reason he'd gotten himself stationed back on Earth was so that he and Mom could build the ship that would take them away from her for so long. A part of her hated them for it, even as she put on a brave face and asked him excitedly about the ship's systems. She wondered if her Mom ever felt the same way. Then again, Mom had been dealing with it since long before Katie had been born. Katie just hoped that when Matt and Dad got back they'd realize that they had it so much better on Earth and not stuck on some stinking spaceship, and then Katie would never have to get used to watching them leave the planet.

* * *

A/N: Well, new work, so please let me know what you think. Next chapter could be titled 'Keith does not work well with others.'


	2. The Best

A/N: Oh wow, you're still here. Huh.

* * *

The Best

Hell week was not aptly named. It was definitely hell, but it also lasted for two weeks. Two weeks full of exercise, and screaming instructors, and classes well into the night, Lance was pretty sure he'd never been more exhausted and miserable in his life. Hell week also didn't so much end as it got a bit less intense. Starting week three, they moved on from classes that were mostly Garrison indoctrination to more academic curriculum, and the more time spent in classrooms just meant less time to get screamed at. They still worked out every morning, military training ended in the afternoon so that academic classes could happen in the evening, and they still got smoked whenever someone messed up.

Week three though was also when they got moved out of the big bay style dormitories at the reception battalion and into actual rooms. Lance was sharing with a guy from Norway named Francis Scott, and another guy from Samoa named Aputi 'call me Hunk' Kilisi. Eventually they'd be a team. Lance would be the pilot, Francis would be the science officer, and Hunk would be the onboard engineer. In the beginning though, they did everything separate with their own tracks. Lance was in a class of nothing but support pilots. They were separate from the fighter class. The same didn't go with the engineering and science tracks where cadets in the science track were in the same class whether they'd been assigned to a fighter crew or a support crew.

Hunk turned out to be an awesome dude. They didn't have a lot of time to talk, (by the time they were done with classes at night they were both ready to pass out) but he was warm and friendly and Lance thought they'd get along just fine, even if the other boy was a bit melodramatic and saw doom and gloom around every corner. Francis though had grumbled about having to share a room with an 'airheaded flyboy.' Lance had already been warned that the other boy wasn't there to do his science homework for him, which wasn't ever going to be an issue, but they were roommates and Lance was determined that they'd all get along together eventually.

The limited free time they had after the entry phase was nice, but Lance found more time to miss home. He wondered if anyone else was giving the twins swim lessons.

* * *

Throughout his first week of training at the Garrison, Keith had a lot of memories pop up from other lifetimes. The training was familiar. Keith had been in various armed groups again and again throughout his past lives, and hell week seemed to show that there were some things that stayed the same from species to species. Primarily, getting yelled at.

"Is that all Cadet?! My grandmother can do more pushups than that! Did you even think about working out before you came here? Just thought you'd coast through, didn't you? That's the sort of performance that gets Cadets shipped back home in their first month."

It was a good thing that Keith's face was pointed at the ground, because he couldn't get in trouble for rolling his eyes. He was doing better than most, so he was pretty sure he wasn't going to be getting sent back to the Shiroganes. Still though, he might as well get the most out of it. He struggled to push himself up once more before falling to his knees.

"Did I say you could stop Cadet?!"

It sucked. It really sucked a lot, but it helped that he could remember some really horrific basic trainings to compare it to. Still though, what really helped him resist the urge to tell the Chief to go screw himself was the knowledge that it was all for a purpose. Everything he did, he visualized the stars. He remembered that there was so much more out there, and when the Garrison finally figured out their hyper relativistic drive, Keith was going to ride out among the stars. Until then, he just had to deal with a few annoyances. Like his roommates.

"Oh my god, go to sleep Gyeong," Barnes said.

One bone of contention was that Keith had never really been able to stay in bed for more than about four hours. He couldn't leave his room after curfew, and there wasn't really anything to do besides homework. He got restless.

"Ugh, is Gyeong doing sit-ups again?" Wilson asked.

"No, he's just pacing," Barnes said.

Keith thought he was pretty quiet about it.

"Just ignore me," Keith said. Barnes was the one who woke up Wilson anyways.

"There's a test in English tomorrow," Wilson said.

Keith groaned. He pulled out his English textbook and a small penlight and tried to quietly figure out what the hell the past participle was.

* * *

The first night at the Garrison, Hunk became convinced that he had made a phenomenal mistake. He had indeed been sent to the American Division so now he was stuck in the flight engineering program. Somehow whenever he'd thought about joining the Garrison he'd only really thought about the end results. He'd have to put up with space travel for a bit, and then he'd get to play with the best tech in the world. He had never really put much thought into what training was going to be like.

People kept yelling at him. Not just the instructors either. Hunk was at the bottom when it came to fitness somehow, and the instructors made it sound like everyone had to do more because of him. So there had so far been a lot of highly stressed cadets all acting like Hunk was dragging them down. Which he supposed he might be.

He'd been hitting the gym ever since he'd taken the entrance exam, and he could safely say that he hated exercise more than anything, but he hadn't really seen the benefits. Which wasn't to say that he hadn't put on muscle. He'd definitely gotten stronger in the previous months, but he also hadn't lost a single pound of fat, and running was still torture.

The food was another issue. He'd heard horror stories of what people ate when they were in space, but he'd thought things would be better on Earth at least. It was a bit disheartening though, to see over boiled vegetables and unseasoned mashed potatoes and dig into them voraciously, because he had worked up a great hunger. Momma Talia was one of the best Chefs in Samoa, and Hunk shuddered to think of what could happen to his palate if he spent four years eating in the Garrison's galley. The worst possible outcome would be that he actually got used to this food.

So after his first day he'd lain awake on his narrow bed in a wide open bay filled with bunk beds feeling exhausted and sore and like he was either doomed to failure or to misery. After two weeks of feeling like that every night, they'd moved into rooms for three and Hunk was ostensibly rooming with his future teammates, though for the longest time, Hunk felt sure that he'd never get to really work with either of them, because right after that, they'd had their first of many fitness tests and Hunk had immediately been flagged. Now Hunk hardly had any time to get his homework done because he had to do remedial physical training. At the very least, he wasn't the only one.

On the other hand, classes were going alright, though in this instance, alright meant he would have usually been supremely bored but now he was just glad to have a moment where no one was yelling at him and he could gather himself. Instead of taking notes in physics he found himself sketching out ideas for how the hyper relativistic drive could possibly work. The Galaxy Garrison's research was still largely under wraps, so Hunk had wide open playground to work with.

Two months in, and Hunk was no longer technically failing the physical fitness test, though he was getting about the equivalent of a D. Better yet, they'd started going over flight systems and for the first time, Hunk started feeling a little bit like he had a future at the Garrison.

* * *

"A pilot doesn't need to be able diagnose and fix a system failure on the fly," Lieutentant Commander Botende told them in their first flight operations class. "You have engineers for that. You do need to intuitively know how a damaged or malfunctioning system is going to affect your mission though and to be able to help your engineer prioritize systems. You don't need to be able to analyze deep space telemetry, but you do need to know your sensors capabilities and be able to request relevant information from your science officer."

"A pilot is the leader of a team. It is your ship, your crew, and you must know your ship, its systems, and the jobs of your crew to be effective. You must be a jack of all trades. Your engineer will know how to reassemble the cooling manifold, you will know where to look in the manual and be able to follow its instructions."

Pilots had to be well rounded, and Lance was pretty sure that he'd need help now and then from the rest of his team, but he supposed that was the point of putting teams in the same room in the first place. There was plenty of science and engineering his class would be learning before they ever sat in a pilot's seat.

Classes were fast paced and it often felt like Lance was trying to catch water from a firehose. There wasn't even a question about using his meds. He knew he wouldn't have survived without them. Life went on like that for weeks. Get up in the morning, exercise, clean up, breakfast, military drills, lunch, math, history, and English, then a couple hours to do homework before dinner followed by classes that were basically specialized crash courses in science, engineering, and navigation. And no weekends to speak of, besides a couple of hours for cadets to go to whichever religious service was being offered. Lance found comfort in the hymns, which had many of the same melodies as the ones back home, though they were in English.

Eleven weeks in saw the first quarter over and done with. It had been nonstop and Lance had never been more stressed out, but he'd made it. The end of the quarter came with a small ceremony to mark off the first phase of their training, and the gaining of certain privileges. Like the ability to go off base on the weekends, which they'd actually get the next quarter. More importantly, they got their personal belongings back. Lance finally had his cell phone and that night he'd be able to put on a face mask. The next day, Lance and Veronica would be flying home, but for one evening he was a free man. He was wearing his civilian clothes for the first time since he'd arrived, and with the small stipend he'd been given, he was planning on having some fun in town.

"You've both got to come with me," Lance said. "This is our first chance to really hang out."

"I've got a flight in the morning," Francis said, shaking his head. "And so do you."

"It's five o' clock," Lance said. "We've got plenty of time. Back me up Hunk."

"I have been dying to eat something that wasn't made in the galley," Hunk said.

"Yeah?" Lance said. "Veronica knows the town, we can find whatever you've been craving." He turned to Francis. "Come on, you can come out to dinner right? We'll be back long before curfew."

Francis looked conflicted.

"There'll be girls," Lance said enticingly.

"There's girls here," Francis said.

"Yeah, but you can't date them," Lance said. Dating between cadets was strictly forbidden.

Francis thought about it. "We won't be out too late?"

Lance grinned. "Of course not, we've got a flight in the morning."

Veronica gave him a big hug when they met up. They'd seen each other in the halls of course, but Lance's own time had been so regimented that they hadn't actually gotten to really talk to each other since they'd gotten off the maglev in Tucson. She'd already ordered transport and a few of her friends from her year were there as well.

"Okay, where are we taking you?" Veronica asked as the van drove away from the front gate.

"Anything Samoan?" Lance asked.

"They probably don't have anything Samoan," Hunk said. "I'll be happy with anything Polynesian."

"Well unless you want to go all the way to Tucson, I know there's a Hawaiian place in town," Veronica said. "It's within walking distance of the Dungeon."

"That's great," Lance said. The Dungeon was a nightclub that catered to teens, which basically mean't there was a dance floor, video games, a lot of junk food, and no alcohol.

Veronica had already told him that she'd be seeing more than enough of him over the next two weeks, so Lance and his teammates got dropped off at Leilani's Cafe while Veronica and her friends went off to do their own thing.

The thing was, that none of them had ever really socialized. Lance had been too focused on staying on top of things, while Francis just seemed to be rather standoffish. Hunk on the other hand seemed personable enough, and he definitely didn't need help with the material. While strong as heck, though, he'd been flagged for not meeting cardio-vascular requirements, so a lot of his study time had been converted into extra athletics time. Lance wasn't sure when Hunk would need to be able to run two miles on a space ship, but the Garrison seemed to think it was a priority.

All in all, even though they'd been rooming together for the past eleven weeks, none of them really knew each other, so there was just a bit of silence in the beginning while they looked at their menus. Lance struggled a bit with the language, his English was good, but mostly focused on being able to follow along in class rather than the terms for all the different culinary words. Eventually he pulled out his phone and aimed the camera at the page and let it translate for him.

"So," Lance said after they'd all ordered and there weren't any menus to take their attention. "Life story. Go." He pointed at Francis.

Francis looked put on the spot.

"Um, I'm from Norway," he said. "I want to go into deep space sensing, and the Garrison is the place to do that."

"Cool," Lance said. He knew how to talk to people like Francis. "Talk to me about deep space sensing, that's stuff like figuring out what's happening in other solar systems, right?"

"Something like that," Francis said. "With any luck, there'll be a prototype of the hyper relativistic drive sometime in the next decade, and when we're ready to leave the solar system we're going to want a list of places to visit."

"You want to be on the first ship out there?" Lance asked.

"That would be ideal," Francis said.

Lance probed him about it all for a while before turning to Hunk.

"So what about you, Geordi, what brought you to the Garrison."

"Geordi?" Hunk asked.

"Star Trek reference," Francis supplied.

"Chief Engineer of the Enterprise," Lance said. "You haven't watched Star Trek until you've watched it in Spanish dubs."

"I don't think you're going to beat Sir Patrick Stewart," Francis said.

"Yeah," Hunk said. "I'm a Star Wars fan."

Lance gasped. "Say it isn't so," he said. "Luke, I am your father, and you are grounded mister."

"Being grounded sounds nice, if I can get a ground job with the Garrison right out of training that would be great," Hunk said. "Seriously. I did not sign up so that I could get sucked out of an airlock."

"You don't want to go to space?" Lance asked.

"Have you watched literally any movie about space travel?" Hunk asked

"You mean like Star Wars?" Lance asked.

"Like the latest Alien movie, or maybe you saw Titanic III: Haley's Comet, and how about that one that came out over the summer about the Orion crash."

"Dude, the guy playing Shiro was great," Lance said. He hadn't really looked like Shiro that much, but he'd sure had the same heroic air that probably followed the real Shiro around.

"The point is, space is hella dangerous, and if for some reason, when all is said and done, and we're done with training, if they want to give me a desk job, I will not be complaining."

"So why the Galaxy Garrison?" Francis asked.

"I love the tech," Hunk said. "The Garrison is the place to be. I'm sort of with you on this, only I don't want to be on the first ship that uses the hyper relativistic drive, I want to build the first ship that uses a hyper relativistic drive. Preferably without ever leaving the ground."

"Well okay," Lance said. "So tell me about Samoa. What's it like in the Pacific?"

"What's it like in the Atlantic?"

"Tropical paradise," Lance said. "A busy tropical paradise. My family owns a hotel in one of the hottest tourist spots in Cuba, only a few blocks from the beach. I've been working there since I was old enough to help out. Are you close to the beach? Do you swim?"

"Pretty close," Hunk said. "Don't swim much, but I've been surfing now and then, what about you?"

"Oh man," Lance said, hamming it up a bit. "Every time I've tried it a tourist on a surfboard tries to murder me by running me over. I've got a scar down my back from the last time. The surf section is dangerous. Forget space travel.

"You've got a scar from surfing?" Hunk asked.

"Dude, I'll show you when we get back," Lance said.

"Well, it didn't get too crowded where I lived," Hunk said. "You should give it another shot."

"Sure," Lance said. "Some time after you go to space."

Their food came eventually, and it was really good. Hunk though seemed a bit critical. After eating galley food for the past three months, Lance wasn't sure how he could complain about anything that didn't look like it had just come out of a mylar bag. They talked more about where they'd all come from; Francis, for the most part, needing to be cajoled into contributing to the conversation, but Lance considered it a victory. They were going to be a team, and Lance was going to be their leader.

The team lasted until they left the restaurant. Francis declared his intention to go back to base, and Lance was grudgingly true to his word and didn't try to get him to stay longer. After his taxi pulled away, Lance took a moment to figure out which direction to head in. He hoped the Dungeon offered up as much fun as it was hyped up to be.

"You and me, Hunk," Lance said. "We're going to be each other's wingmen tonight."

"Okay," Hunk said. "One question. How does one wingman?"

That was not a question that Lance was going to admit not knowing the answer to.

"Well we just help each other out," he said. "You know, with the ladies."

The Dungeon was only a couple of blocks away, they heard the music thumping from inside before they even got close. There was a bouncer at the door, who Lance was pretty sure was there to keep out adults, and also to collect the cover charge. The club was brightly lit inside and it was full of all the cool things Veronica had said would be there. It was also full of a lot of the kids from the garrison who had just gotten their first night off base.

Lance looked around. "Where are the locals?"

"I'm sure there's some around here somewhere," Hunk said.

Lance frowned, realizing that his main plan of impressing some local girl by telling her he was a garrison pilot probably wouldn't have much success when he was surrounded by other pilots from his year.

He threw on a smile for Hunk. "Don't worry about it. You play Mario Kart?"

"I've been known to dabble," Hunk said.

"Come on," Lance said. "Looser buys drinks."

They never did meet any local girls that night, but Lance got the chance to talk to a bunch of his fellow cadets that he'd never talked to before. He stuck by Hunk though, insistent that the evening be a team bonding exercise, even if one of them was missing.

* * *

They made it back before curfew and the next morning Lance and Veronica retraced their route back to Cuba. Mamá picked them up from the airport and drove them home, asking a million questions, and demanding pictures at every stoplight. Lance got tackled by the twins when he walked in through the door and he made a big show of getting knocked over and exclaiming over how he had been planning out all the fun things they'd do over the vacation.

There was a party that night, as was tradition, and Lance got roped into telling stories about his first quarter by everyone who could get a moment of his time. The twins of course demanded a lot of his time, and he wound up helping them draw pictures of some of the garrison spaceships. He'd missed everyone while he was gone, but helping out in the kitchen that night, Lance realized just how much he was going to miss over the next several years.

Christmas was typical. They had a breakfast of pastries and watched a recording of the Mass broadcast from the Vatican. Presents were opened and then preparations for Christmas Dinner began.

Lance had gathered that Christmas in America was the biggest holiday of the year, but on the island most people didn't make a big deal out of it. Lance's family was a bit of a different story, but for the most part, those who observed it mostly just had small celebrations at home. Living in a resort town though, meant tourists, and people loved to travel to the tropics over Christmas vacation. The whole while the family celebration was going on, they were cycling people in and out of the hotel's kitchens and the front desk. Lance and Veronica certainly weren't immune from the process and Lance found himself helping deliver room service in the morning and then turning over tables in the banquet hall in the afternoon. One nice thing though, was that people tipped really well on Christmas day.

After dinner Mamá made natilla and Lance did his part to make sure the twins didn't succeed in eating their own body weight in the pudding. Tío Mateo had gotten them a new video game, a jungle adventure, so after they'd had their fill, Lance helped them set it up and they played until the twins bedtime.

"So are you making any friends?" Papá asked when Lance got back from a room service run.

"My roommate's pretty cool, Hunk," Lance said. "We don't have much time to say more than a couple of words to each other, but he seems like a friendly guy. My other roommate's a bit standoffish. They're pretty polar opposite personality wise, but they're also both huge nerds."

"You're a bit of a huge nerd yourself," Tío Mateo said from the grill where he was making someone a late night cheeseburger. "Fries should be done."

Tía Ellena pulled the basket out of the fryer. "Are there any nice girls there?" she asked.

Lance was pretty sure she meant good Catholic girls.

"We're not allowed to date anyone," Lance said.

"Did I ask about dating?" Tía Elena asked.

"There's plenty of nice girls," Lance said. "I just haven't gotten a chance to talk to any of them outside of class.

"You could come to the range tomorrow," Tío Mateo said. "Do you remember Berto's girl? Louisa? She's been coming to the range with him. They'll probably be there tomorrow."

"I don't think Lanceito's looking for a weekend girlfriend," Tía Elena said. "He's only here for another week." She said it with a bit of a side eye look at Tío Mateo who'd probably gone through a good half dozen girlfriends while Lance had been gone if history was any indication.

"Burger's up," Tío Mateo said.

"We actually get weekends next quarter," Lance said. "So I'll have more time for socializing." Assuming he could keep up with his studies without spending all his free time studying. Lance grabbed a soda from the fridge and put it on the cart next to the burger.

"Well I hope so," Tía Elena said. "You're fifteen for crying out loud."

Lance wondered if Hunk's family was as interested in his love life. Lance delivered the burger and got tipped in a currency he didn't recognize before going back to the kitchen where Tío Mateo started talking about his time in basic training, something that sounded horrible, but he sounded fond of. No one else seemed to need any late night snacks, and Lance helped Papá finish off the fries before he went to bed.

Leaving home again at the end of the holiday was bittersweet. The twins latched on before he could get into the car, and Veronica, of course, was no help. She just took out her phone and took pictures.

Lance had fun comparing vacations with Hunk as they decorated the dorm room a bit. Now that they were allowed personal items, the Garrison felt a bit less like a prison and more like an actual boarding school. Their second quarter started without much fanfare. The first week was spent on review, and Lance was spending more of his time with Hunk studying in their free time. Francis still preferred to do things on his own.

What was nice was that second quarter they started taking classes together. Not all of them. Flight operations were still specialized classes, they all had to learn their own specialized jobs before they started team operations in third quarter. It was nice to be able to do homework with Hunk, though Hunk was miles ahead of his fellow engineering students, so it was less of a partnership and more that Hunk did his own homework while Lance asked a million questions. It helped keep him focused though, to have someone to work with. He wound up taking Hunk out into town during their first weekend and treated him to the latest action movie as a thanks for putting up with him. Hunk was cool about it all though.

The one thing Hunk couldn't help him out with though, of course, was flight operations. It was crunch time for learning all the controls, and protocols, and telemetry, and sensor indicators. Trying to memorize everything in the manual was frankly tedious and not nearly as cool as one might think learning about a spaceship would be. He didn't have much time though, since they'd be starting flight simulations soon enough, and Lance needed to be at the top if he was ever going to transfer.

Of course, now they also had elective courses, and while it was nice to add some not so academic classes, it was also just another area for his attention to go. Combat marksmanship was great though. Everyone had gotten rifle basics in the first quarter, but it was recognized that most people would never be in a position to actually need to know how to shoot one. Higher level classes were still offered though, and the rifles they used were so much more advanced than what he'd had in Cuba. The red dot sight also was a lot easier to use than iron sights. It was the first class where Lance felt like he was ahead of most everyone else. Some of the techniques the instructors taught were a bit different from what Tío Mateo had taught him, but Lance adapted quickly. They started with distance shooting, but they'd be moving into close combat by the end of the quarter. Second years who had passed with high enough marks were eligible for the sniper course the following year.

Lance had also enrolled in small unit leadership, and by the end of his first week he already had visions of himself as a squadron leader. He knew that next quarter when they started full team operations that he'd need to show his leadership skills if he wanted to be considered for leadership positions later on. On top of those classes though, he'd joined the swim team, and while it was fantastic to get back in the water regularly, the swimming pool just wasn't the same as the ocean.

The first few weeks went by slowly, with the promise of their first simulator runs coming up, it was all any of the pilots were thinking about, even with their new classes. Those first few weeks though were the first time he really started to get to know his fellow pilots. They were all excited about what was to come, and so many of them seemed, like Lance, to have something to prove. Mealtimes that had previously been a timed and rushed affair, with instructors breathing down their necks now became more relaxed and they actually got to talk while they ate. All in all, the Garrison was really starting to be fun.

"Did you guys hear about what happened with the fighter class today?" McClintock asked as he sat down across from Lance at lunch.

"They had first go at the simulator, didn't they?" Lance asked.

"Yeah," McClintock said. "I heard a couple of fighter cadets talking when I was in line. Some guy named Gyeong aced the simulator on his first go."

"For real?" Yates asked. "LC Botende made it sound like we were all expected to crash the first few weeks."

"Yeah, well sounds like everyone else did," McClintock said.

"I heard Shiro aced his first go," Evans said.

"Oh, if you listen to half the rumors the dude was practically born in a cockpit," Waleed said.

"I'd believe it," Lance said. "Bet you all I'll be the first to ace the simulator."

"Yeah, right," Yates said. "You can't even sit still in class, what's the bet you spaz out and come in last."

Lance gripped his silverware a bit tighter but laughed it off. "Shots fired," he said. "Just you wait."

Lance spent the rest of the day, and a fair bit of that night daydreaming about acing the simulator. He was going to ace the simulator on his first go and the Garrison would realize they'd made a mistake, and that Lance was supposed to be in the fighter class. He'd get moved up and he'd be vying with this Gyeong guy for the top spot. It was the next day, as luck would have it that Lance met the top pilot in their year. The first thing he noticed was the unruly mop of black hair, followed by the falcon patch with the pilots tab, and then the nametape, Gyeong. Lance felt his heart skip a beat for just a moment as he looked at the guy's face because if you compared the two of them, Lance knew which one of them actually looked like he was an ace pilot, and which of them looked like a support character. Lance instantly wanted to get to know him better. He probably had all sorts of insight on the simulator and he was probably ridiculously cool.

Lance plastered on his best smile and decided to play it casual. "Oh hey, you're the hotshot, aren't you?" he asked. "The guy who passed the simulation on his first go, right?"

Gyeong stopped dead in his tracks and gave Lance a real funny look, like Lance was some new specimen that he'd never seen before. Lance's smile got a bit strained before the guy turned his head away and started walking past Lance.

"Yeah, whatever," Gyeong said. It took Lance a moment to realize he was just being completely brushed off.

"Hey," Lance said indignantly. "Rude."

* * *

He didn't get to see Shiro too often at the Garrison. First year's schedules were pretty well regimented, and it was a difficult environment for him to adjust to. He was pretty used to being ignored to his own devices. It would be worth it though.

His first quarter done, Shiro brought him back home for the holiday, along with his fiancé Adam. Keith chastised himself for feeling jealous of the attention Adam got. As if he needed Shiro to give him any mind. It wasn't like he was ignored. It was just that everything Shiro took him out to do, Adam came along too.

Winter quarter started with their first go in the flight simulator, and after Keith's first go, he was more excited than ever. He was going to go into space, and he was going to find his soulmate among the stars.

That was a new concept for him, but he'd latched onto it. His first time in the pilots seat had felt so familiar, a dozen memories surfaced for the first time of at least a dozen different ships and planes, cutting through the dark of space or screaming through the atmosphere. He remembered going into a nosedive to evade a fighter, a brief moment of weightlessness. He remembered a dogfight in a biplane that probably wasn't on earth. He remembered strapping in for his first trip into space. He remembered leaving his planet for the last time, the huddled mass of every single civilian he could fit on his ship behind him as they fled the invasion. He remembered the struggle of duty, when all he had wanted to do was turn around and fight; fight and kill the bastards who had taken his soulmate from him.

While the memories of alien fighters were exciting, the word soulmate reverberated around his mind. It had been odd remembering like that. Odd that the first time he remembered his soulmate was a memory of his death. Odd that it was triggered the first time he ever sat in the pilot's seat of the simulator at the garrison, but there he was, living his dream and trying not to get choked up as memories of different incarnations of his soulmate overcame him. Two souls, following each other across the universe and across time, destined to find each other. He recognized his soulmate now in memories throughout his past lives, and suddenly he wondered if his drive to get into space was just his drive to find his soulmate again. He felt the loss of him, the loss he had experienced countless times before, the loss he would feel again, the wound that would be soothed when they were together once more.

He knew that he'd find him though; they always found each other. He was brought up short when he realizes that it is a him. It always was, or, at least it was when they were occupying species that experience gender like that. Keith had been questioning for a while, so remembering his soulmate for the first time was probably the best way he could have come to welcome his own identity. Though having this realization while getting lectured by the instructor and his fellow cadets huddled around behind his seat had been far from ideal.

He didn't get to take his time with the new memories. He was there to get into space, and he was not going to do that if he bombed his first exercise. Remembering his past lives wasn't that much of a cheat in school. It wasn't like he remembered everything. The important things, the formative things, those were the memories he remembered. The pythagorean theorem though? Memories of past lives might help in school, and while he now had plenty of memories of flying a fighter, they were all different, all had different controls. The feeling of flight though, the instinct, that came back to him quickly, and when it was time to run his first simulation it wasn't any trouble at all. He aced it and went to the end of the line while the next cadet took the seat. He had plenty of time then to relish memories of his other half.

He spent most of that night trying to remember more. He usually let memories come as they would, but he struggled that night to pull up as many memories as he could of his soulmate. He usually got by with very little sleep, but that night he didn't get any. A day prior, if someone had brought up true love or the idea of a soulmate, Keith would have scoffed and rolled his eyes. It was different now that he knew he had one; now that he remembered what it was like to feel that way about a person. Not just anyone, though; his soulmate. He had a fucking soulmate out there. He just needed to find him first. He was certain that he would know him when he saw him once more. He remembered lives where he didn't have the memories, where he grew up never realizing that he'd done it all before. When he felt like he'd met his soul mate for the very first time. There was something special about those memories, but he also remembered lives where he had waited for the one he knew he would recognize, lives where he carried the memories just as he does in this life. He remembered the feeling of completeness every time he finally found the one he'd been waiting for.

Meeting Lance one day later didn't feel like that. Oh, he didn't even know the boy's name at that point, but he knew right away. The moment they locked eyes, he knew. In his last life, (at least the life he's pretty sure was his last life); but in his last life, his soulmate had had soft grey eyes. In other incarnations they were bright yellow, or black all through, but he knew when he looks into Lance's eyes that he was seeing into a very familiar soul. He heard a familiar laugh in a different voice. He knew that no one else on Earth seemed to remember their past lives; he knew that none of his human past selves ever remembered their past lives, but he still expected the other boy's face to brighten up in recognition when they first met.

"Oh hey, you're the hotshot, aren't you?" They other boy asked instead, his face bright and animated. "The guy who passed the simulation on his first go, right?"

There was nothing there. Nothing that said he knew who Keith was to him. He felt… forgotten; abandoned once more, the thought that he didn't remember floating through the Plaxas Belt together, or dancing in Crystham Hall left Keith feeling cold. He didn't remember ever feeling like this before; not when he had just been reunited with his soulmate. Getting away was easier.

He brushed past the boy. "Yeah, whatever," Keith said, keeping his voice tight as he tried not to get choked up.

"Hey," his soulmate said, indignant. "Rude!"

He should have been fine. He should have just smiled and started a conversation. Why was he so awkward? Why did everything have to be so hard? Why did he have to screw up every interaction he ever had with anyone? He remembered lives where he had found it easy to talk to people; where he understood people, and where they understood him. He wanted to go talk to Shiro. Shiro was the only person he really got along with. The only person who'd had any patience for Keith since his dad had died. Shiro was getting ready for his mission though. He didn't have time to deal with a problem he couldn't possibly understand.

Keith went to his room instead. There was going to be a test tomorrow in physics, but he couldn't study. He found himself ruminating instead on the brief interaction he had had with his soulmate. He knew what Plavix would have said. Plavix had been an Andoran in an elliptical galaxy far far away. Keith only had a few memories of being him, but he definitely remembered the confidence he had had when he had first spoken to his soulmate.

Shiro would tell him to stop dwelling on the past and start planning for the future. So what was his plan for the future?

Keith worked on his homework, and wondered if that boy made the Garrison his home.

"Home is where your heart is," Keith mumbled as he erased an entire paragraph of halfway coherent analysis on geoengineering theory.

* * *

Lance spent way too much time thinking about the meeting instead of getting ready. Hunk, who loved gossip, had already heard about Lance's interaction with the fighter pilot, so apparently Lance had had a bit of an audience at the time.

"Did you really call him 'hotshot?'" Hunk asked.

"Yeah," Lance said. "It's a compliment right?"

"Sort of," Hunk said. "Also sort of means you think he's a showoff."

Lance groaned. "English is hard."

"You've gotten a lot better since I first met you," Hunk said.

"Not good enough, apparently," Lance said.

"Shouldn't you be more worried about the simulator tomorrow?" Francis asked from where he was sitting at his desk.

Lance groaned and pulled up the manual on his tablet. He went to bed that night frustrated and calling himself nine kinds of idiot.

That following morning when he stopped by medical after physical training he wasn't exactly surprised to find out that he wouldn't be allowed his meds until afternoon classes.

"So who here thinks they're ready to land on Earth?" Lieutenant Ramirez asked about an hour later as they all gathered around the simulators.

Lance wasn't the only one who eagerly raised his hand.

"Well too bad, we're going alphabetically. Abbad, you're up first. Adakai, you're on deck."

Enthusiasm died fast. Everyone was failing. Everyone crashed. Lance though was still halfway convinced he was going to ace the thing, and then it was his turn. Just sitting in the pilots's seat was exciting. The manual really didn't prepare him for all the gizmos and indicators that demanded his attention though. He started eyeing everything he could, making sure he knew exactly what everything did, but before he knew it, the simulation had started.

"You're approaching the atmosphere," Lieutenant Ramirez said. "Are you within your window?"

Lance's eyes roamed around until he found the planar representation of his ship with regards to the atmosphere.

"I need to correct course, Sir" Lance said.

"And that means?"

"I need to ask my science officer, Sir" Lance said.

"By the end of the year, you'll be able to do that yourself," Lieutenant Ramirez said. "But for now, your science officer tells you to correct by five point two degrees."

Lance searched around, his eyes seeming to catch on everything besides what he was looking for. He could hear Lieutenant Ramirez's shoe tapping on the deck besides him. Eventually though he found the dorsal jets and did the quick math for the burn while his eyes were drawn to the oxygen meter which seemed off. Why would the oxygen be that high? Was there a system failure? What was the procedure for that, had they been taught that yet? Was it part of the assigned reading?

"Clock's ticking cadet, you're about to hit atmosphere," Lieutenant Ramirez said.

Lance punched it in and activated the jets. He felt the ship tilt, and his eyes drew back to the oxygen meter before he realized that the ship had tilted in the wrong direction.

"Wait," Lance said, hands flying back to the dorsal jet controls, but before he could do anything else the ship gave a lurch and then a big red sign flashed across the screen. 'ALL HANDS LOST'

Lance looked back to the dorsal jets and realized he'd activated the lower dorsal jets instead of the upper ones. Which meant he'd slammed into the atmosphere at a ridiculously steep angle that would have ripped a ship apart.

"Well you killed us all, do you know where you goofed, Cadet?"

"Wrong dorsal jets, Sir," Lance said, his face burning.

"Well at least you know it."

"Was there something wrong with the oxygen, Sir?"

"Noticed that? There are about a dozen readings here that are out of norm, but none of them will affect a landing. You've got to prioritize your attention Cadet. Simmons, you're on deck, Schiff, you're in the hot seat."

"Yes Sir," murmured Lance as he made room for Schiff, his face burning.

"Well you sure aced it if you were going for the fastest failure," Yates said.

"Oh yeah, let's see how well you do Yates, after you get to see literally everyone else go first."

"Keep it quiet cadets," Lieutenant Ramirez called out.

Lance's face burned even more. He should have watched everyone else have a go, but he found himself going over his own performance again and again.

Lance ran by medical after sim time was over and got a six hour dose before lunch. When he got to the galley he found Hunk and sat with him. The engineering track was supposed to have been doing their own simulations that morning, and Lance asked for every detail Hunk was willing to give, which was a lot. Hunk could probably tell by Lance's own lack of enthusiastic retellings, that his own simulation hadn't gone well, and there were times it looked like he was physically restraining himself from asking about it.

It was as he and Hunk were on their way to history class that Lance found himself once more face to face with Gyeong, and crap, he hadn't planned on meeting him again so soon. How exactly did one apologize for sounding like a jack ass on accident?

Gyeong's eyes locked with Lance's for a moment and Lance suddenly felt a bit stupid, and then the boy's eyes fell on Lance's shoulder and his whole body seems to shift backwards.

"You're a cargo pilot," Gyeong said, as if he was disgusted by the idea.

Lance bristled. "Oh, so that's why you couldn't give me the time of day, well just you wait Gyeong, I'll be wearing a falcon on my sleeve when I graduate."

The other boy opened his mouth to say something, but Lance wasn't going to let him get the upper hand.

"Yeah," he said. "And I'll be top of the class too, just you wait."

The other boy seemed to be at a loss for words, which was a bit of a surprise, since assholes usually had too much to say as it was.

"See Hunk? I've got him speechless." He turned towards his roommate who had his arms crossed and was giving Gyeong a disapproving look.

Gyeong for his part finally came up with something to say. "Why don't you focus on flying your cargo ship in a straight line, Sanchez, before you talk big like that?" And with that the other boy stormed off.

"I can too fly in a straight line, and I'll be flying circles around you," Lance said to the boy's back. The flow of cadets moved on as the spectacle ended. "Did you see the mullet on that guy?" Lance asked Hunk as they walked away.

* * *

Today was a fresh start, he kept telling himself. He kept looking for his soulmate in all of his classes but he didn't lay eyes on him. He wondered if the boy was in his second year, though he'd looked just a bit younger than Keith himself. Keith hadn't looked at the other boy's uniform when he was right in front of him, so he had no idea how many shoulder stripes he wore.

By the end of the evening, he had a tentative plan. Give an apologetic smile, bring up the simulator and see if he wanted any tips. Brush off the day before. It would be fine; he hoped. His soulmate was always a caring person, but not necessarily always especially forgiving.

It wasn't until lunch period that he discovered why he hadn't seen his soulmate around anywhere. He'd assumed his soulmate would be a fighter pilot, he'd felt sure of it. But there he was, only one stripe on his shoulder; he was in Keith's year. There was his nametape, Sanchez, good to know, and there was his section patch, right under the pilot tab… He wasn't prepared for the patch to have a Pegasus on it.

"You're a cargo pilot," he said, disappointed. Not the words he'd been meaning to open with.

"Oh, so that's why you couldn't give me the time of day, well just you wait Gyeong, I'll be wearing a falcon on my sleeve when I graduate."

Keith opened his mouth but nothing came out. This wasn't how he had planned for this to go. He couldn't just tell the other boy that they were soulmates, and he didn't think he'd said the word 'sorry' within the past decade.

"Yeah," the other boy said. "And I'll be top of the class too, just you wait."

Fuck, this wasn't going the way it was supposed to. Why did his soulmate hate him? He'd messed everything up. Why couldn't the other boy just remember? Keith remembered him, he remembered a hundred different versions of him, why couldn't his soulmate remember just one. People were looking at them. People were staring at him, at the stupid face he was making as he tried to think of something to say. Why was everything so fucked up?

"See Hunk? I've got him speechless." There was another boy, besides his soulmate. He was looking at Keith with eyes that said 'back off'. Keith snapped.

"Why don't you focus on flying your cargo ship in a straight line, Sanchez, before you talk big like that?" he asked as he stormed off.

"I can too fly in a straight line, and I'll be flying circles around you," the boy said. Keith felt like he already was. Stupid, stupid, why did he say that? Why did he lose his temper?!

He skipped lunch. He wandered off to the East wing where the support section trained. It didn't take him long to find the pilot's board. Sanchez, his nametape had said Sanchez. He skimmed down the list. It was too early for any rankings to be out so the names were still alphabetical. There he was. Sanchez, Lance. His soulmate's name was Lance. Lance hated him. It shouldn't have been surprising. His own mother hadn't cared enough to stick around. No family had ever fought to keep him after his dad had died. Why shouldn't his soulmate be any different? Why was Keith so different? It was a while before he got the conversation with Lance out of his head, and when he did, another thought took it's place.

Lance didn't remember his past lives. No one else on Earth ever remembered their past lives. If no one else, then at least Lance should, but he didn't. So why did Keith? It wasn't the first time he had asked the question, and as he often did when he let himself think about it, he pulled out the only thing he had left from his mother. The dagger she had left with his father when she had disappeared into the night. The dagger that was sharp as a razor, hard as a diamond, never needed sharpening and could cut through about anything. The dagger with the strange glowing symbol in the middle of the quillon that tickled at the back of his head like a memory from so many lifetimes ago.

He glanced up at his ceiling, as if he could look out to the sky beyond. The stars held the answer. Traveling beyond the sky was his destiny, there were so many things out there greater than what was held on Earth. He'd known that for a while, and now he knew that he had a soulmate who was chasing the stars too.

He knew better than to tell anyone about his thoughts about the origins of the dagger, of his own origins. If anything, thoughts like that were a bigger secret than the memories of his past lives. He wrapped up the hilt that night with a strip of cloth from an old t-shirt. He needed to stop thinking about the dagger. He needed to stop thinking about his mother, and he needed to stop thinking about Lance, give things some time to cool off.

He focused on his classes after that while only occasionally stalking his soulmate. He took every moment he could get in the simulator and worked out whenever he needed a change of pace. They'd opened up the electives for first years at the beginning of Winter quarter. Keith had signed up for as many as he could. He was in Close Quarters Combat, Astronomy, and Art. The first combat lesson he had after meeting Lance for the first time had come with a memory of sparing with his soulmate in a park, a few lifetimes ago. He had looked around but he already knew that Lance wouldn't be there. They didn't have any electives together. Lance, he would later find out, had taken Combat Marksmanship and Small Unit Leadership, in addition to joining the Garrison swim team. Which was for the best. The less they interacted, the better; for now.

* * *

Off his meds, Lance would have probably spent the rest of the day going over that altercation over and over again in his head, but on them he only cycled through it about a dozen on and off throughout the day. Who was Gyeong to look down on him like that. Just because he'd gotten into fighter class, just because he got lucky on his first go. The guy probably thought he was better than everyone else, but Lance was going to show him, just like he was going to show the rest of the Garrison that he had what it took.

That night he struggled long after his meds wore off to try and memorize the arrangement of all the controls and indicators. Come the end of the week and they were back in the simulators, and this time it wasn't the whole class crammed into one simulator, all getting the same experience. They were broken down, four to a simulator, and they got to run through each of the three exercises twice. Lance still found himself having difficulty figuring out where he was supposed to be looking at any given moment while also remembering each and every procedure and protocol that had been crammed into him so far.

Of course, this time everything was being graded and evaluated. Lance didn't need to look at the pilots board to know he was near the bottom, though that didn't stop him from looking at it every time he passed it.

Veronica tried to cheer him up that weekend, and Lance wound up on a video call with her and a good chunk of the family Saturday evening.

"Have you lost weight, mijo?"

"No mamá, I've gained weight," Lance protested. "I'm in the middle of a growth spurt. They just sent me back to supply for new uniforms."

"You do look a bit thinner," Tía Ellena said.

"Lanceito's swimming again," Veronica reminded them. "He's on the team. Remember when he was competing and you were worried he was wasting away?"

"Coach Isidro asked about you," Papá said. "I saw him in town last week."

"Well if our teams do well enough, we might see each other at regionals," Lance said. "How's Luis, I haven't seen him online, Junior year too much for him?"

"Luis has a girlfriend," Marco said.

This devolved into gossip for a while.

"Are you going to services?" Mamá asked as the call was winding down.

"I am," Lance said. "It's not the same though, in English. The songs, you know?"

"Well you don't have to pray in English," Mamá said.

"I know," Lance said. "I love you all."

And there were a bunch of rejoinders and then the call was over leaving Lance a bit melancholy.

"Should I pray that I start getting the cockpit right?" Lance asked. "What I really need is more time in the simulator."

"Couldn't hurt," Veronica said. "Hey, remember when you turned that wagon into a rocket ship for the twins?"

"Hey, I didn't know they were going to take it to the top of the hill," said Lance for what felt like the thousandth time.

"I'm saying you could make your own simulator," Veronica said.

"How am I-"

"Not the whole thing," Veronica said. "Just the important parts."

"Huh," Lance said. "Well, you're helping."

"Come on," Veronica said. "Lets hit up the student store."

They wound up with a bunch of colored markers, some packing tape, and a couple of big empty cardboard boxes from the loading dock. Francis looked up at him skeptically when he walked in.

"Francis, prepare to be inspired," Lance said.

"I am overcome with a great doubt," Francis said.

Lance waved him off.

The boxes got cut up and after a while they'd fashioned a good sturdy shell. After that came the very painstaking process of drawing in every dial, nob, screen, switch, and button that was in the cockpit, while very carefully referencing the schematics in the manual.

"Our room's never going to pass inspection with that thing there," Francis said. "How long are you keeping it?"

"Forever dude. It'll fold up and fit in my wall locker."

Veronica left Lance to do the drawing after a while and got on his laptop and started writing up scripted scenarios.

"If anything," Lance said. "I think just having to draw out and label everything is a big help."

"Well our dorm room now looks like a five year old lives in it," Francis commented.

"Yeah, yeah," Lance said. "I know you think it's awesome."

A couple hours later and he had a good facsimile of the real deal.

"Ready?" Veronica asked.

Lance checked his work over once again. "Yep."

"Alright, your ship has just completed launch and you are within your orbital window to set a course for Mars."

"Okay," Lance said. "I need my science officer to confirm relative trajectories."

Veronica nodded. "He gives them to you, but was that the first thing your should have done?."

"Post launch systems check," Lance said. "I instruct my engineer to start post launch procedures, and I start my own checks."

"Call out everything as you check it," Veronica said.

It was a bit easier after he'd just drawn everything in.

"Main engines are green," Lance said, pointing to the indicator. "Cabin pressure and temperature are normal…"

It went on and on like that, though Veronica had a number of reminders for him. Eventually though, she had her own schoolwork to take care of.

"Go through the manual," Veronica said. "Make your own scenarios. Turn each one into an audio recording and go at it in your spare time."

"Thanks Veronica," Lance said.

"Any time," Veronica said, giving him a hug. "Don't forget your actual homework."

"I won't," Lance said. He started flipping though the manual once she left.

"Any idea where Hunk is?" Lance asked.

"They've got the new plasma induction regulator in from testing and a bunch of the engineering cadets went to go watch it get taken apart."

"Huh," Lance said. "So, want to help me make a few scenarios?"

"I told you I'm not doing your homework," Francis said.

"This isn't homework," Lance said.

"Well, it's not my homework," Francis said.

"It will be," Lance said. "Next quarter we've all got to work together. We're going to pass and fail as a team. Don't you want to get as much out of those exercises as you can?"

Francis frowned. "Well then we're waiting for Hunk."

"That's right, we do this as a team," Lance said.

Francis shrugged and turned back to his tablet. Lance pulled up the voice recorder on his laptop and started recording the scenario Veronica had already made up for him. He'd run through it three times by the time Hunk got back. Hunk laughed a bit at the cardboard mockup when he walked in, but he took much less convincing than Francis had.

Come Wednesday, and the support pilots were back in the simulators. Lance still found himself distracted easily by the myriad of lights and all the information that kept popping up in front of him, but he was doing a lot better at finding everything right away, and remembering protocol. Lance thought it was a bit like the rifle. The more he practiced the more it would become second nature.

The following week their class got a visit from Shiro. They'd found out the day before and Lance had spent the night before daydreaming about having a perfect run in the simulator in front of the famous pilot. Everyone else was plenty excited about it too, and talk about Shiro was buzzing at his table at breakfast that morning. When Shiro finally walked into the simulator bay where they were all gathered, Lance thought to himself that he really did look like an action hero movie star. He seemed larger than life and he had an air about him that seemed to command attention and respect.

Shiro talked about his time as a cadet, and how he'd struggled in the beginning, and that made Lance's heart soar, to know that his hero hadn't always been at the top. Lance got nervous when it was his turn in the simulator. Shiro was standing right behind him, giving him pointers and Lance had to stop himself multiple times from daydreaming that one day he'd get to serve under Shiro, that they'd explore space together. Which was silly, since they were both pilots, but some day, the garrison was going to be building great big ships that would travel the stars, and they'd probably need more than one pilot. Heck, Lieutenant Shirogane would probably be the Captain of one by then.

"Ease up on the thrust Cadet," Shiro said. "Throw in a bit of counter, this is a delicate operations."

Lance blushed dark red. "Yes Sir," he said, making the adjustments and forcing himself to stay focused the rest of the simulation.

"Good work, Cadet," Shiro said at the end, clapping him on the shoulder. "Work a bit more on those micro adjustments."

"Oh, right, thanks, I will, um Sir," Lance said, sliding out of his chair and heading back to the rest of the class.

"Why are you blushing?" Yates asked. "Did you bomb?"

"I'm not blushing," Lance defended. "It just gets hot in there, you know? Also I did great."

"Uh huh," Yates said.

* * *

Comparatively, Winter Quarter was going great for Hunk. They'd cut back on his remedial physical training, since he was no longer failing, and classes had started to really get interesting. They were taking apart flight systems, getting their hands dirty, and really getting into how everything worked. On the weekends, there were frequently seminars put on by scientists and engineers from the Garrison. Their first weekend back there was a great talk about intra-system connectivity feedback that had left Hunk reevaluating some of his concepts for the Hyper Relativity Drive.

Of course the Garrison was still the Garrison. The food was, if anything, less palatable. He'd had to take one combat related elective or extracurricular and had wound up on the wrestling team. It wasn't that it wasn't a little bit fun, it sort of was, but it felt like a waste of time. He was an engineer, he was never going to need to know how to fight someone. It was enough of a waste of time that they'd taught everyone to shoot a rifle during first quarter. He could have been doing something productive, but instead he was learning to put someone in an arm bar when there had never once in history been any sort of close quarters combat in space or on Mars or on the moon. There hadn't even been any sort of combat in space for over two decades. Yet the Garrison was still a military institution.

The one waste of time he was generally happy for was Lance. The guy was pretty cool and hated galley food about as much as Hunk did. He also let Hunk talk non stop about whatever he was working on. By the third week of Winter quarter, Lance had managed to find all of the best restaurants in town and regularly got Hunk out of his own headspace enough to go find something better than bland grits and overcooked strip steak.

"Okay," Lance said. "Titanium Man or Excelsior?"

"Oh, Titanium Man wins hands down," Hunk said.

"Ahah," Lance crowed. "I knew you were going to say that."

"Because I'm right?"

"Because you've got a huge bias towards technology based supers."

"No I don't," Hunk said.

"Cyborg, Rocket, Dr. Pain," Lance listed a bunch of them, ticking them off on his fingers. "They're all engineers dude, or they were 'created' by engineers."

Hunk thought about it while he grabbed a handful of garlic truffle fries from the platter in-between them. "They're just naturally better," he said.

Hunk would have probably preferred to have just lived in a room with other engineers. But if he had to share a room with a pilot, he was glad it was Lance. The guy was serious about his studies but he also took time to chill out, and they shared just enough non-school related interests to get along really well.

Hunk hadn't been all that psyched about Lance's cardboard 'mockpit,' in the beginning, but he appreciated that Lance wanted to be the best. Hunk was starting to realize that his chances of transferring to the European Division for their Developmental Engineering track was dwindling, so in the end, Hunk needed to be the best as a flight engineer. If he was going to transfer to a ground position in any sort of good time after graduation, he needed an excellent record, and a part of that was going to be, unfortunately, flight operations. Lance was already getting them started on working together, and while he'd have rather been drawing up blueprints with his fellow engineering cadet, Sarah, he recognized that Lance's obsession was probably going to pay off.

* * *

It was a month into winter quarter by the time he actually got to see Shiro in anything more than passing since the holiday.

"Hey cadet, how much homework do you have this weekend?" Shiro asked when Keith answered his knock.

A lot, really.

"Just a bit," Keith said. "Ah, Sir."

"Wanna see a space ship?" Shiro asked, waving away the Sir.

"I've seen a bunch of spaceships since I've gotten here," Keith said, a bit confused.

"I mean one that hasn't been decommissioned and put on display," Shiro said. "Come see the Heracles."

"Your spaceship," Keith said, suddenly understanding.

"My spaceship," Shiro nodded.

"Can I go inside?" Keith asked.

"I can't even go inside," Shiro said.

"But it's your spaceship," Keith said.

"We start running on board drills in two weeks after the engineers finish their tests," Shiro said. "But for now it's off limits. Now, if getting an up close and personal look at humanities biggest ever spaceship just isn't your cup of tea I suppose I could find someone else to show off to."

"No, I want to go," Keith said. "Just let me get my jacket."

Shiro got a hoverbike from the motor pool and they rode out into the desert to the launch pad. It was the first time Keith had been off compound since he'd arrived and there was something about the expansive desert with its plateaus and canyons that seemed to call to him. Like there was something out there for him to explore, even though he knew he belonged in space. He told himself that it was nothing, but he felt the call of the desert the rest of the day he was out there with Shiro.

The ship was massive, though Keith knew most of it was fuel to get out of Earth's gravity well before the ion drive kicked in.

"Why don't they build it in orbit?" Keith asked.

"Everything's experimental," Shiro said. "We've got the best of the best working on her, and most of them aren't up for months without gravity."

"You'll be on the lookout for aliens, right?" Keith asked.

"Are you still watching Ancient Aliens?" Shiro asked.

"What? No!" Keith said. "That stuff's stupid. But that doesn't mean they aren't out there."

"When I first met you, you asked if I'd seen a chupacabra out in the desert here," Shiro said.

"There could be," Keith said. He had plenty of memories of crazy creatures out in the cosmos.

"So what about aliens visiting way back when?" Shiro asked.

"It's mostly just racist crap about how the Egyptians couldn't have built the Pyramids," Keith said. "But aliens definitely exist, and you better make sure they don't try to eat you." Not the best way to die, he'd remembered that when the latest Alien movie had come out.

They walked around the launchpad, Shiro pointing out all the different parts and telling him about his two crew mates. He pulled out his phone and showed him a photo that looked like it had been taken over dinner with the Holts. Keith just shrugged at the picture of the happy family. He was a bit miffed at the thought of a man with a wife and daughter waiting at home while he took his son and got in an experimental spaceship and visited one of Pluto's moons.

"So your instructors have a lot of good things to say about you," Shiro said.

"You're checking up on me?" Keith asked.

"You got in with my recommendation," Shiro said. "Just making sure you're adjusting all right."

"Classes are okay," Keith said with a shrug. "The simulator's nice, but they won't give me any of the advanced scenarios yet."

"Yeah, it'll be a while," Shiro said. "Just hang in there."

A light started flashing on the side of the launch pad and a door on the ship opened, letting a bunch of people in clean suits out into a glass airlock.

"I think the engineers are on lunch," Shiro said. "Want to go say hi?"

Keith gave him a pained look. Socializing wasn't his thing.

"Okay, okay," Shiro said, holding up a placating hand. "Though that brings me to another thing."

Keith gave him a wary look.

"A couple of your instructors mentioned you seem pretty withdrawn."

"I'm just focusing on my studies," Keith said.

"And that's great," Shiro said. "I just wanted to make sure everything was going alright."

Keith thought about it for a moment. It wasn't exactly an answer to Shiro's question, but he didn't really have anyone to talk to about anything.

"I'm gay," he said.

"I'm glad you felt comfortable telling me that," Shiro said. "Do you have any questions? Any issues?"

Keith shook his head. "No, but I just sort of figured it out a month ago and there's just some… stuff tied up in it."

"I was about your age when I started figuring things out too," Shiro said. "It's a journey, but you don't have to figure things out on your own."

"I know," Keith said. "I mean you've been helping me figure it out since before I met you."

"Oh?" Shiro asked.

"You've got a loose floorboard," Keith said. He always looked for hiding places when he got to a new home. None of his foster parents had ever found his dagger, but Keith often found things that other kids had hidden away, including some pamphlets in Shiro's old room.

"Oh!" Shiro said. "Jesus, that was ages ago. Is Captain Marvel still guarding my hidden treasure?"

Keith gave him a questioning look.

"Wait, is that why you're not getting on with your classmates? Is someone giving you trouble for being gay? That's an EO violation. They can't do that."

"No one's giving me trouble," Keith said. "No one knows."

"So what's going on?" Shiro asked.

Keith considered how much embarrassment he was willing to deal with.

"There's a boy I like," he settled with.

"Okay?"

"I keep putting my foot in my mouth when I talk to him and he hates me," Keith said.

"Ah," Shiro said. "So, when you say he hates you?"

"I might have commented on him being a cargo pilot," Keith said. "Things sort of devolved after that."

"So what do you like about him?" Shiro asked.

Well he's my soulmate, for one, Keith thought. "Well," Keith said. "He's very good looking."

"Okay," Shiro said, but the pause afterwards let Keith know he was expected to say more. He tried to think about his soulmate of the present, from what little he'd seen in the dining hall or in the corridors.

"He's really full of life," Keith said. "And he smiles like the sun and he hates me and it's so frustrating and then I can't think when he's around."

"He probably doesn't actually hate you," Shiro said.

"Well he definitely doesn't like me," Keith said.

"Look, Keith," Shiro said. "Patience yields focus. Give it some time and maybe you'll see things in a clearer light; figure out a way to get along with this guy. But Kieth, while I'm a firm believer in fighting for what you want, sometimes there are people you just aren't going to get along with, and you're not going to do yourself any favors trying to change that. Give it some time, but don't forget that there are other people here at the Garrison."

"Plenty of fish in the sea?" Keith asked. That might apply to others, but he knew that there was only one person for him. At least, there was one person who the universe at least seemed to think he belonged with; who wouldn't abandon him, even though he already had because Keith ruined everything. He hated being Keith.

"Not quite," Shiro said. "If this guy's important to you, then he's important to you. But there's other sorts of relationships you can have with people here. I made a lot of good friends when I was a cadet. One of them became my fiancè"

Keith had never been good with friends. Even before he had become a foster kid and gotten moved around a lot.

"Are things difficult with him?" Keith asked. "Because you're ace?"

Shiro had never told him that, but there had been those pamphlets.

"We make things work," Shiro said. "There's a lot more to relationships than sex. Now, I don't need to remind you about the Garrison's policy on dating each other, right?"

"I think there was a briefing on it," Keith said. There'd been multiple reminders.

"You can be friends, you can get close, but you've got to wait for anything more than that."

Keith nodded, hoping to forestall a lecture. He knew he'd be waiting a long time.

They toured around the launch pad for a bit before stopping at the facility's small galley for lunch. Keith found himself talking a lot more than he had in a long time. He found himself telling Shiro a lot more about himself than he'd ever told anybody. There was a familiarity to Shiro. Not like with Lance, but close. Like they'd known each other a lot longer than they had. Keith wondered if maybe Shiro reminded him of big brothers he'd had from past lives because he was a big brother from a past life. Maybe soulmates weren't the only ones who followed each other from life to life. Maybe Shiro had been Kohvar. He hadn't been so tempted to tell anyone about reincarnation in a long time. It was late in the afternoon when they got the hover bike back to the motor pool.

"I'm having dinner with my crew mates," Shiro said. "Want to come?"

"I've got a lot of studying to do," Keith said. "Um, today was cool."

"Watch out for Lieutenant Mir's midterm. She likes to test on the supplemental reading."

"Good to know," Keith said. "I'll, um, see you around?"

"Count on it," Shiro said.

Keith retired to his dorm room. As was usual, his roommates were off studying, or whatever, with their friends. Keith had the room to himself and for the first time in a while he managed to study without being distracted by thoughts of Lance. He couldn't keep his mind off of him for too long though. Lance was there in the galley when Keith went for dinner. Loud and full of life, like always. A shining beacon in the darkness; he had a small gaggle of students from the support section around him. They all looked like they were having a good time. He felt a bitter anger that he wasn't there, sitting next to Lance. An anger at himself for not being the person his soulmate wanted. An anger at Lance for not remembering him. An anger at the twist of fate that had left them at opposite ends of the room instead of fitted together, like two halves of a whole that they were supposed to be.

He left to the training deck where he worked out some aggression on a training dummy with a practice sword. It wasn't anything they trained with in Close Quarters Combat, but it reminded him of the Geom Do lessons his dad had had him enrolled in before he died. It had been the most his dad had ever acknowledged their Korean roots.

Oddly enough, it was randomly hacking at a practice dummy with a wooden stick that lead Keith to make his first sort-of friend at the Garrison. Nam Pak was part of the after class martial arts group, and when he asked Keith if he'd like to learn how to properly use a sword, Keith agreed on a whim. A whim that probably had nothing to do with the fact that Pak was attractive and might just be a distraction away from Lance.

As things went, between studying, extracurriculars, and occasionally getting to see Shiro, Keith didn't have too much time to worry about his soulmate. This went fine until the Garrison hosted a swim meet. Keith did a very bad job of telling himself that he went to show school spirit and not to see Lance compete. He definitely wasn't there to see Lance in a speedo.

Try as he might, he couldn't get the other boy out of his head. Not when he had lifetimes of memories of them together. Not when the other boy had such a magnetism to him. In the end, he was weak. He'd find himself checking the pilot's board in the support section, or sitting nearby in the galley. When the first rankings had come out, Lance had been near the bottom, but a couple months in, and he was at the top of the list for the support section. On rare occasion, Keith would find himself in the observation deck when the support section had free simulator time. A few people gave the falcon patch on his uniform a look, but no one commented on the fighter pilot keeping tabs on the cargo pilots.

Lance, had skill. Keith didn't need to see the rankings to understand that. Where Keith flew by the seat of his pants, mostly on instinct, Lance was very technical and analytical of every situation. Where listening to him talk at a mile a minute on a constantly changing topic could lead one to think that Lance was scatterbrained, watching him fly showed him to be hyper focused when he needed to be. If he had one flaw, it was that he was trying to prove himself a better pilot than he was.

Keith himself always flew with the goal of surpassing his own ability, but at the slightest excuse, Lance would try to fly the cargo simulator like it was a fighter jet. It was trying moves he hadn't trained for, in a ship that wasn't designed for them that would occasionally see him receive a mission failure and a lecture from Lieutenant Commander Botende.

There was an odd solace to keeping tabs on Lance, but most of the time it left him morose. It was after one such viewing that he wound up needing to bleed his aggression off on Pak on the combatives deck after dinner.

"Patience yields focus," Shiro's voice called out across the training floor.

"Officer on deck," someone called out and they all came to attention. "Good evening, Sir."

"As you were, Cadets," Shiro said. "I'm just here to observe."

"Any pointers, Sir?" Wilshire asked. The Heracles launch was the biggest thing happening at the Garrison just then and most people had probably read Shiro's bio. Everyone in the martial arts group knew that First Lieutenant Shirogane had brought the Garrison gold at the International Military Sports Council's World Combatives Championship three years running while he'd been a cadet.

"Well I believe I gave one when I came in," Shiro said. "You can't always brute force your opponent. Sometimes you need to have the patience to assess for weaknesses. You'll hear this a hundred times before you graduate, but 'slow is smooth, smooth is fast.' Don't lose yourself so much in the fight that you can't focus on what you're doing."

Keith knew that Shiro was talking to him, and was grateful that he wasn't directly being called out.

"Thank you, Sir," Wilshire said. "Alright, let's show Lieutenant Shirogane what we've been working on."

Shiro stayed till the end and pulled Keith away when they had cleaned up.

"You're doing really well," he commented as they left.

"Thanks," Keith said. "I'm surprised you have any time to come and mentor cadets."

"I don't really," Shiro said. "This whole next week is nothing but simulations, and preflight checks. I've got three physicals scheduled before we launch, and I'm trying to spend as much time as I can with Adam. I wanted to tell you though, Mom and Dad are coming for the launch, and I've got your name down on the list."

"Oh," Keith said, rubbing the back of his neck and feeling a bit awkward to be included as a part of the family. "It'll be weird with you off planet," he said.

"You'll get used to it," Shiro said. "To be honest, this is the longest I've been on Earth since I graduated. Just focus on your lessons, and maybe also your crush."

"He still hates me," Keith said.

"Have you talked to him since?" Shiro asked.

"No," Keith said, knowing that Shiro probably thought him foolish.

"Maybe try that," Shiro said.

Keith shrugged.

"Alright," Shiro said. "I've got to get to a briefing, I'll see you next Wednesday."

"Yeah," Keith said. "I'll see you."

A week later, the Heracles launched, and Keith watched it with equal parts worry and jealousy from the observation deck. Being out there once more, Keith felt again as though there was something out in the desert that was calling to him. Something that was waiting for him. He ignored it. Space was calling to him, that was the only thing that mattered. There wasn't anything on Earth for him.

* * *

Time went on, and Lance slowly started to climb through the rankings. By the end of the quarter, Lance was getting close to the top, and time in the simulator was starting to become fun. Of course he couldn't help but to compare himself to that Gyeong jerk. Every now and then he'd pass by the fighter section and see the guy's name right up there at the top. That was also around the time that the Heracles launched, which was definitely the coolest thing ever. Lance had put up a poster that showed Shiro superimposed in front of the ship, and on the morning of the launch, he and about half the garrison climbed up onto rooftops around the base to watch it shoot off into the sky.

Spring break was fun. It was only a week, so they weren't flying back home, but Veronica was eighteen, so she was able to check Lance out of the Garrison. They hopped on the maglev and went to California with some of Veronica's classmates. They got a couple of hotel rooms and spent the week going to Disneyland and the beach and checking out Hollywood. What was really cool though, was meeting all the high school girls on their spring break. It certainly wasn't Varadero, but it was still great.

Lance managed to end his Spring break with a girlfriend, which had Veronica rolling her eyes, and of course she told everyone about it during their next video chat. It didn't last of course, and Lance spent a depressing afternoon wondering how the life of a space pilot would mix with a romance. He didn't exactly have time to sulk, of course. Spring quarter brought Total Crew Operations, and now Lance was joined in the cockpit by Hunk and Francis, and it was really starting to feel like he was piloting his ship through outer space. It didn't take much cajoling to get them to join him frequently during free sim, and when he couldn't get that, he still had his cardboard mockup.

Flying in the simulator was becoming an obsession, and he couldn't wait to get to do the real thing. He'd watch videos from promotional material that the garrison had put out for the latest fighters and came away with all sorts of things he wanted to try in the simulator. He even tried to persuade Lieutenant Commander Botende to let him try out the fighter simulator, but that didn't fly.

Things were going pretty well in Combat Marksmanship as well. They started team operations in Spring Quarter, and Lance had been made a team leader. Their swim team on the other hand was somewhat lousy. There wasn't much competition for Lance on the team, and they never did well enough collectively at meets to advance them. It was mostly just a chance for Lance to get in the water.

Most everyone on the swim team though really enjoyed swimming, so Lance got along great with everyone. The swim team captain was this guy Pascal in his last year as a cadet. Lance always felt self conscious when the guy was swimming in the next lane over. Like anyone glancing their way would compare the two of them and find Lance lacking. The guy was tall and ridiculously good looking, and he looked like he should be the fastest swimmer on the team. Sometimes it was a bit like a sucker punch to his stomach when he glanced his way. Lance never really felt like he could talk to him like he could with the rest of his teammates. There was no way Lance was ever going to measure up to a guy like that, even if he were the faster swimmer.

Still though, swimming was going well. Everything was going well. Everything was just clicking into place for him. All of the hard work was paying off and Lance was truly looking forward to whatever challenge the Galaxy Garrison decided to throw at him next.

* * *

There was so much pomp and circumstance for the launch. The Galaxy Garrison's first manned trip to the edge of the solar system had attracted so many higher ups, international figures and press, and then there was Katie and Mom. They weren't even going to see Matt or Dad. Argonauts going on long term missions were quarantined before launch. The whole thing seemed pointless to her, but Mom always went to Dad's, and now Matt's, launches, and Katie suspected that this one was going to be a bit harder on her than the ones in the past, so Katie went along for the privilege of watching most of her family leave for over a year.

"Come on Katie," Mom said. "There's going to be a speech."

"There've been three speeches so far," Katie said.

"They're going to recognize us," Mom said.

"We're not doing anything," Katie said.

"It's just something they do sweetie," Mom said. "They recognize that these missions take a toll on the family that gets left behind."

"Did you ever ask Dad to stay behind with you?" Katie asked.

Mom shook her head. "I would have never let your father ask me to stay grounded back before I joined the development team here."

"But you did stop," Katie said. "Why couldn't he?"

"Your father, and Matt, are forging a path for humanity into the cosmos," Mom said. "That's what this is all about. A future where mankind isn't trapped in one-"

"I got that, Mom," Katie interrupted. "I got that about a couple of pompous speeches ago."

Mom sighed. "It's hard to explain to someone who's never been up there," she said. "Come on. It's hard for them too. They'll be watching from the cockpit. Commander Simmons is going to give a nice speech, and then we can wave to the camera and let them know we're here for them."

Katie huffed and let Mom drag her off. They sat on the small stage set up in the observation deck next to Shiro's family and then they listened to Commander Simmons rehash some of the points that had already been made, about exploration and mankind's drive.

"Of course these sorts of missions take a toll on the family who stay behind. We're joined today by Lieutenant Shirogane's Mother and Father, Fujinuma and Sugita, as well as his fiancé Lieutenant Adam Ward, and his foster brother, Galaxy Garrison Cadet Keith Gyeong. Here for Commander Holt and Ensign Holt are Commander Holt's wife Colleen and his twelve year old daughter Katie. Though our ships have gotten faster, we continue to travel farther and farther, and the Kerberos mission will be one of our longest expeditionary missions in a long time. As our brave Argonauts have been preparing for their daring mission, the support they have received at home and from their loved ones has been instrumental to their wellbeing. They can all take comfort from the knowledge that the Galaxy Garrison family will be right here for them every step of the way. Now, I would like to present a token of our appreciation to the families of our crew."

Katie, Mom, and Mrs. Shirogane got bouquets of flowers, ugh, while Adam, Mr. Shirogane, and Shiro's brother got commemorative lapel pins. Katie knew that she was on camera, and that Matt and Dad were watching, so she resisted the urge to roll her eyes and just smiled. Then they were at the ten minute countdown, and they all stood to wave at the camera. Mom threw an arm around Katie before the camera feed was cut and then everyone went to the windows and waited. The countdown felt ominous, and then a bright light erupted underneath the Heracles and it shot off into the clear sky and disappeared. Mom held her as she cried.

* * *

Months went by in a comfortable routine. Spring quarter started soon after the launch, and Keith kept an eye on updates on the Heracles in-between classes as it made its way towards Kerberos. Keith kept busy. He pined after Lance, he studied the blade, and he ignored the feeling that told him he should just walk out the doors and start wandering through the desert.

One of the draws of watching Lance fly recently wasn't actually seeing his pilot skills, but how he interacted with his crew.

The first few months, pilots just focused on learning to fly, but the start of the third quarter had led to the introduction of total crew operations, and where Keith struggled to work with his crew, Lance took to the task easily, usually knowing how to direct his crew, even if he didn't know exactly what the solution to any given dilemma was.

It was a few weeks after the Kerberos Launch and Keith was using Lance Watching as a way to keep his nerves about Shiro's mission at bay rather than looking for something to distract him from Lance. Lance was running a critical systems failure simulation; trying to dock using flight propulsion after a micro jet failure.

"Lance, do you think you could make this a bit smoother?" Lance's flight engineer, Hunk, asked.

"You try doing micro adjustments without the micro jets," Lance said. "Besides, we've got to get you used to this. Can't be throwing up when we're dodging comets in the Kuiper Belt."

"That's not how the Kuiper Belt works," Lance's science officer commented.

"Crud, Lance, we just lost flight jets also," Hunk called out.

Keith frowned. That meant a mission scrub. He'd looked forward to watching Lance try to dock the cargo simulator with just flight jets.

"Trajectory?" Lance asked.

"You're coming in at a fifteen degree tilt at thirty-six degrees from main axis. At a hundred and thirty knots we will impact twenty meters from the docking port at twenty-five degrees from the carrier's vertical axis in two minutes if you don't fire emergency reverse thrust jets before then," his science officer told him.

Lance sighed heavily. "For the record," Lance said with an air of great disdain. "I am acknowledging that procedure dictates we break off our approach and wait for a rescue crew."

"But instead of following procedure and passing the simulation, you're going to do something that's going to crash the simulator and cause me to throw up," said Hunk.

"I'm not going to crash the simulator," Lance said, a radiant smile on his face now. "This isn't even a test, this is what free sim is for, let's see what we can do. Francis, pull up the flight corrections for a coolant venting and reverse engineer how a port side heat dump would change our trajectory. Hunk, what exactly is wrong with the flight jets?"

"Ignition's fried," Hunk said. "That's not a two minute fix."

"Does the fuel pump still work?" Lance asked.

"Technically yeah, but you're not going to get much thrust just from the venting of a bit of fuel. They're not even supposed to go off if ignition doesn't work."

"I just need to correct the tilt after we get everything we can from a heat dump," Lance said. "Can you bypass whatever inactivates the jets when ignition doesn't work?"

"Give me a minute."

"We also need to slow down," Francis said. "Emergency jets aren't meant for docking."

Lance nodded. "Executing half burn of emergency reverse thrust jets," he said.

"That's not a thing," Francis said as Lance activated the emergency jets and the simulator lurched at the sudden intense deceleration. Lance then manually shut the entire system down to interrupt the process halfway. The ship's telemetry knew if you were on a collision course, so activating the emergency reverse thrust engines executed an automatic burn that would eliminate forward momentum in relation to the object. After a manual shut off though, he would have to wait for the system to reboot before he could use them again.

"Are you crazy?" Francis asked.

"It's a simulation," Lance said. "We're just getting as much out of it as we can. Do you have the heat dump corrections?"

"Heat dump should bring our tilt to ten degrees, but it'll also cause a minor rotation. Your breaking maneuver slowed us to sixty knots. You've bought us another minute until impact."

"I can work with that," Lance said. "Hunk?"

"Hold on," a sick sounding Hunk said.

"I need those jets," Lance said. "You can throw up after I get them."

"Please don't," the simulator tech's voice came over the comm, the first actual intervention from the faculty since Lance had gone off protocol. Lance ignored it. "You've got this, Hunk," he said.

"He's not going to get them in time," Francis said.

"Yes, he will," Lance said buoyantly. "Initiate port side heat dump," he ordered.

Francis activated the coolant vent which earned a groan from Hunk as the ship's trajectory changed slightly. Keith held his breath.

"Status?" Lance asked.

"My calculations were correct," Francis said.

Keith gave a bit of a sigh of relief, eagerly awaiting the next step.

"Hell yeah," Lance said. "That's what I'm talking about."

"Jet shutoff's been bypassed," Hunk said.

"That's my man," Lance crowed. "Okay, now watch me land this bird."

"We're not landing, we're docking," Francis said.

"Oh, so you do have faith in me," Lance said triumphantly as he activated the flight jets, which would only be spewing unignited fuel.

"Our rotation's been corrected," Francis said after a couple of minutes.

"Activating lateral jets," Lance said. "Keep an eye on the airlock."

"You've over corrected," Francis said.

"Shoot," Lance said. "Taking us back."

"You're going to run out of maneuvering fuel," Hunk said. "You're bleeding the system dry."

"Can we siphon from main propulsion?" Lance asked.

"The process takes too long," Hunk said.

"Tanks will be empty in five," Francis started. "Four, three, two, one."

"Shoot," Lance said. "Where are we at?

"Well, we have no maneuverability, and we're going to impact five meters above the airlock. You've also got to bring us down to at least two knots."

"How long of a burn is that on the emergency jets?"

"Eight seconds," Francis said. "But they're not meant for precision, or to have their systems shut down mid burn."

"Let me worry about that," Lance said.

"The system also hasn't rebooted yet," Francis said.

"It'll happen when it happens," Lance said. "Hunk, what can we do to get those five meters down to an acceptable margin of error."

"There's nothing else, Lance," Hunk said.

"There's always something else." Lance said. "What else is on the exterior that could alter course."

"De-icing solution?" Francis asked. "No, that comes out at barely a trickle."

"Emergency parachute," Hunk said.

"The emergencey chute relies on a pilot chute, it doesn't get jettisoned off," Lance said.

"But the panel that covers it does," Hunk said.

"Awesome," Lance said. "Francis, pull up the schematics."

"This is crazy," Francis said.

"This is the time for crazy," Lance said. "And hey, emergency jets have rebooted. Starting eight second burn… now."

Keith counted down the eight seconds in his head with Lance. Lance again manually shut off the system. They heard a clunk.

"I don't think emergency jets are going to come online again," Hunk said, sounding miserable.

"If I did it right, we won't need them," Lance said. "Francis?"

"We are at four knots, impact point hasn't changed, impact is now in forty-five seconds" Francis said.

"Awesome," Lance said. "Let's see those schematics."

"The chute hatch weighs thirty-five kilos, and it gets jettisoned off with a force of a hundred and fifty newtons."

"Run the calculations for me," Lance said. "No time to make it perfect."

They waited in silence as Francis worked.

"This isn't exact," Francis said, hesitantly. Lance motioned him to go on impatiently. "Okay, you need to blow the hatch five seconds before impact, too early and we'll overshoot the airlock."

"Throw a countdown to impact up on my screen," Lance said.

Keith glanced at the monitor that showed everything Lance saw on his instrument panel. The countdown started with thirty-two seconds.

"Oh no," Hunk said. "Wait guys, I don't think the chute will deploy in the vacuum of space."

"Well how does the ship know if we're in a vacuum or not?" Lance asked.

"Atmospheric sensor topside," Hunk said. "You can't just turn it off."

"Pull the sensor input cable from the main computer," Francis said.

"I don't have time to figure out which one-"

"The sensor cables are all blue, aren't they? We don't need sensors now. Pull all of them," Lance ordered. "Then strap in for impact."

Hunk opened the main computers access panel and yanked a whole section of cables out in one go before running to his seat as a number of alarms all started blaring at once.

"Activating chute!" Lance called out. Keith tensed up. Five seconds later they impacted, with the simulator giving a great lurch.

Lance let out a 'woop.' "How'd we do, flight?" he asked.

The simulator tech came back on the PA. "Docking was a success," he said. "But at four knots you've likely damaged your ship and the airlock needlessly."

Keith smiled.

"Yes!" Lance said. "I'd like to see Gyeong pull that off."

Keith gave a very small gasp at the use of his surname.

"Carrier damage is not an acceptable outcome for this scenario," the simulator tech said.

"Oh, come on, flight" Lance said. "What if I was carrying injured personnel in need of emergency medical treatment?"

"Given that that wasn't part of the scenario, that would make this a mission failure," the simulator tech said. "Lucky for you then that this is free sim and you aren't being graded."

"Thank you flight," Lance said as respectfully as he could while trying not to sound like he was rolling his eyes. "Hey, good job guys, I couldn't have done that without you."

"Pull that during class and we'll have words," Francis said.

"Admit it," Lance said. "That was cool."

"Yeah, it was cool," Francis said grudgingly.

"Don't think you're getting out of there without plugging all those sensor cables back in, cadets."

"Roger that flight," Lance said, clearly not eager to let the high of his success be trampled by having to reset the simulator. "Francis, let's get those schematics. Hunk, are you going to be okay to get them back in, or are you still going to be sick."

"Going to be sick," Hunk said.

"Off my ship, Kilisi," the flight tech said.

"Thank you, flight," Hunk said, before rushing out and leaving Lance and Francis to get the ship reset.

Keith eyed Lieutenant Commander Botende in the corner of the observation deck where she was taking notes.

He walked over and cleared his throat after coming to the position of attention.

"Haven't had enough of the simulator Cadet Gyeong?" Lieutenant Commander Botende asked. "I don't normally have fighter pilots observing support operations."

"The simulator's never going to be enough, ma'am, I need time in the real thing" Keith said honestly. "Sanchez pulled off a pretty good save."

"I don't discuss other cadet's performances," Lieutenant Commander Botende said. "I will say, that from what I've seen, you would have probably wound up in a yelling match with your flight crew trying to accomplish the same maneuver. Cadet Sanchez was right about that. Something for you to work on."

Keith bristled at that, but knew to hold his tongue. "Yes ma'am."

"Was that all?"

Keith struggled to remain at the position of attention. "Do pilots ever move from support to fighter class, ma'am?"

"Not often, Cadet," Lieutenant Commander Botende said. "Only if they show a great deal more promise than we'd initially assessed, and if there's an opening. Enjoy the rest of your evening, Cadet."

Keith bit his tongue at the dismissal.

"Ma'am," he said as he took a step back and stalked away. It was time to get off of the observation deck before Lance came up to watch the next iteration.

Keith hadn't expected for Lance to bring him up during the simulation. A part of him was ridiculously giddy at the thought that Lance was still thinking of him, while realistically he knew that Lance had only thought of him out of spite.

* * *

Katie had wound up downloading a bunch of spatial data from the internet and had built her own computer model of the solar system and all the other ships and probes out there so she could keep proper track of the Heracles. Kattie got to write to them, keeping them up to date on what was happening around the Garrison and the progress she was making on her projects (the ones she wasn't keeping under wraps). Mom was on the team that analyzed all of the systems reports to keep track of how all of their experimental tech was functioning during the mission, so of course she was plenty busy, but she made sure to spend whatever time she had at home with Katie.

Matt kept sending updates, constantly gushing about sensor readings and the onboard experiments they were running. Though she'd spent a lot of time being a bit bitter, it was hard not to let his enthusiasm affect her. The science at least was cool. Dad wrote too, and sometimes she and Mom would snuggle up on the couch to read his letters together before watching one of the horrible cyberpunk movies that Matt had always forced them to watch when he'd been younger.

* * *

A/N: Thank you for reading. I'm sort of caught between wanting Klance to happen now, and wanting to put them through the wringer before they can get their happily ever after. An alternative title for next chapter is 'Katie is a badass.'


	3. Warming Up

Summary: Pidge breaks a few (dozen) laws.

A/N: Three chapters in three weeks? Yeah, don't get used to that.

Warming Up

* * *

Spring quarter ended with Lance listed in the top three on the pilot's board.

"Did your class lose any fighter pilots in first year?" Lance asked after their flight home had taken off. They had two weeks between Spring and Summer quarter and the both of them were excited to go home.

"No," Veronica said. "But there were, like, three in Junior year. Don't worry about it though. There's nothing you can do until it happens."

"I can be ready if a slot opens up," Lance said.

"Well, keep practicing," Veronica said. "You'll be at the top of the rankings soon enough."

"They're going to want to give me the flight aptitude test again," Lance said.

"You'll do better," Veronica said.

"Yeah, but what if I don't?" Lance asked.

"Then you'll be the best support pilot in the Garrison," Veronica said.

That wouldn't be good enough, Lance thought.

Luis was back from college, and after his Junior year in Business Administration, he seemed to think he knew everything about running the hotel. Papá had given him a Summer project to increase room service sales. It was already gearing up to be a heavy season, and Lance and Veronica were given their own tasks as well, after the party, of course.

It was a week into vacation when the Heracles landed on Kerberos. Lance and Veronica gathered the twins and watched the footage of the landing that had been sent back. They wouldn't get any footage of the first Kerberos moonwalk until the following day though, which Lance couldn't wait for.

Except there wasn't any footage the following day. No real explanation either, not that day or the day after that. They were talking about possible systems problems and electromagnetic interference on the news, but it was clear it was all speculation. The Heracles had gone dark and Lance had gone tense inside waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Two days before he was set to fly back to the Garrison, Lance was woken up by the twins. Rolando had tears running down his cheek while Camila was clutching onto the cat like it was a teddy bear.

"Hey guys, what's wrong?" Lance asked.

Camila stayed quiet while Rolando gave a hiccuping "They're dead!" which had Lance shooting up and grabbing his phone, dread pooling in his stomach.

"Who's dead?" Lance asked, already dialing 911.

"The Heracles crew," Rolando said. "The television said that they're dead."

Lance heard a voice on his phone.

"Sorry," he said. "False alarm." He hung up.

He sat back down on the bed a bit relieved, though that only lasted a moment.

"Do you have to go into space?" Camila asked.

"You guys," Lance gathered them into a hug. "That's not going to happen to me."

"How do you know?" Rolando asked.

He didn't know. "I'm just a cargo pilot. I'm just going to fly stuff between Earth and Mars, you know? Maybe Europa. Just boring stuff for me, don't you worry. I mean it. And hey, I'm staying on Earth for the next three years. Okay? Nothing's going to happen to me.

"Ronnie's going soon though," Camila said.

"Veronica's the best science officer in the Garrison," Lance said. "She won't let anything bad happen."

Shiro had been the best. The whole crew had been the best, and now they were all dead.

The whole household was down for the rest of the vacation, and Lance had walked in on Mamá talking to Papá about how dangerous everything was, how she didn't know how she would deal with two children flying around in space. Lance went and played with the twins so he wouldn't be able to cry about it. Leaving home for the Garrison had never felt as hard as it did at the end of their two week summer vacation. Every hug seemed to last longer, and Mamá, Papá, Luis, and Tía Elena all promised to come out to see Veronica graduate at the end of the Summer.

The poster of Shiro over his bed seemed ominous when Lance got back to his dorm room, and Lance decided it would be a reminder of what was at stake. Rumors about the Kerberos Mission were already making their way through the halls, and Lance decided not to pay attention to any of them until he actually knew what had happened. Besides, aliens were stupidly improbable.

* * *

Keith wasn't sure why he was so shocked by it. Even with the relatively stable turn his life had taken, he should have known. One minute Shiro had been an email in his inbox, and then the next he was just gone. Keith had been at a loss for how to deal with his foster parents, and it was as much a relief to go back to the Garrison as it was an ugly constant reminder of the loss of the Heracles. He'd lost people before, he'd dealt with that before, but part of him was upset at himself just for getting attached to Shiro in the first place. He found himself with a shorter fuse than usual, and everyone seemed to get on his nerves. He had plenty of memories of loss, but that didn't make it feel any less raw, or sudden. He felt changed.

The Garrison itself had changed though. The official word was that Commander Simmons was being transferred, but word that he had been replaced because of the mission failure was what was whispered in the halls. Her replacement, Commander Iverson, was an unpleasant man who left a tension throughout the ranks of the school.

Keith found himself chafing more and more under the tight control of the command structure that just seemed to get more and more oppressive once Iverson took over. He wound up lashing out at the slightest provocation. It wasn't long before he found himself in Commander Iverson's office for an official reprimand.

"The Garrison doesn't need hotheads," Iverson said conversationally. He didn't sound very much like he cared one way or the other for why Keith was standing before him.

"No, Sir," Keith said.

"Top of your class though," Iverson said, glancing with disinterest at Keith's record. "But the Garrison expects more from you than just an ability to fly. Or did you think getting in on the recommendation of your foster brother still held weight here?"

Keith bristled, but he snarled out a, "No, Sir."

"Such a pity," Iverson said, though he didn't sound like he thought it was. "You see, Shirogane had potential too, or so we thought."

He paused there and Keith bit out a, "Shiro was the best."

Iverson ignored the comment. "And you're a foster kid," Iverson said, returning to Keith's file with a smirk on his face, deigning to ignore what Keith had said. "You're seventeen. What will you do when you've been expelled from the Garrison and aged out of the system at the same time. A lot of potential to go to waste."

That caught Keith's attention. Not the idea of having no prospects when he aged out, but the idea of never getting off the planet. Of Lance reaching for the stars while Keith was grounded.

"Expelled, Sir?" Keith asked.

"You're certainly on your way," Iverson said. "I had Lieutenant Commander Botende's job five years ago Cadet. I've seen plenty of good pilots wash out. Not sure what the point of dragging things on is. How much is staying here worth to you?"

"Everything, Sir," Keith said.

"You haven't been acting like the Garrison is everything to you," Iverson said.

"I'll shape up, Sir," Keith said, feeling small.

"Oh you will. I'll make sure that you do, Cadet," Iverson said, and here his casual demeanor turned hard and cold. "I don't believe in coddling people. You have to show me that you're worth keeping around Gyeong. So you're going to start acting like you're in the fucking military, and you're going to show your superiors the subservience that they are owed. I am your god while you are under my command, and you will treat me as such. My cadre are to be shown the respect they deserve and the only 'smart' response they're going to get from you is a 'yes, Sir.' Do you understand me cadet?"

"Yes, Sir," Keith said, trembling from feelings of helplessness and anger and loss.

"You're on extra duty under me from now on, Cadet," Iverson said. "I'll make sure you aren't a waste of Garrison resources. You're going to have to show me that I should let you stay."

"Yes, Sir," Keith said. It was the only acceptable answer. Iverson kept talking for a while longer, becoming more and more fired up as, "Yes, Sir," was the only response expected from Keith. 'Patience yields focus,' he told himself, over and over again. He reminded himself constantly of what was at stake.

Extra duty was an ordeal and by the time he got back to his dorm, 'patience yields focus' had become a mantra, even though he didn't know what he was supposed to be focused on besides the need to get into space. In the following weeks he felt like he was on the edge of sanity. Iverson's extra duty kept him busy every moment he wasn't in class or studying, and every inch of the Garrison was a constant reminder of Shiro. On top of that, he continued to feel the need to walk out the door and search the desert. For what, he didn't know, but the feeling kept growing stronger and stronger and he felt like he was loosing his mind. It was only a continuous focus on what he still had left to lose that kept him in line, that forced him to rein in his temper. It was occasional slip ups that kept him in the hotseat, Lieutenant Graves told him. It was like he was eleven all over again and constantly bleeding off his rage at the universe in schoolyard brawls, only back then he wouldn't have minded being kicked out of school.

* * *

Lance started the Summer quarter with a new drive. It wasn't enough to just be the best. He had to be his own very best, because there was no way that he was going to ever do that to his family. He would always come home, no matter what. Lance grabbed every moment in the simulator he could, even when he had to get other science or engineering cadets to go in with him. When he couldn't get time there he pulled out his mockpit and ran increasingly difficult and obscure simulations of his own making. When it was time for combat marksmanship he ran through every exercise like his life was actually on the line, and he tried to approach homework too with the same drive, because who knew when he might need to know how to reset the engine manifold without his engineer.

Beyond that he started preparing for the opportunity to transfer to fighter class. He made up his own flight aptitude test, though he'd had to ask Francis for a bit of help on the setup. By the end of the quarter he found himself consistently at the top of the support pilots board, the same as Gyeong was at the top in fighter class. The only thing he needed now was a chance, and he'd prove he was just as good; that he had been worthy of the other pilot's attention.

* * *

Two weeks after the start of his extra duty, Iverson got called out to Europe for some meeting, much to Keith's relief. It wasn't like it let him off the hook, but he doubted that anyone else overseeing him would be quite as terrible. He was surprised, though, when he showed up and it was Adam waiting for him. He looked rather terrible, and Keith bit his tongue, figuring he shouldn't say that. He didn't really know what to say.

"You're not even schoolhouse cadre," Keith said.

"I pulled some strings," Adam said. He sighed. "I told Shiro I would look out for you while he was gone. Looks like I've been doing a great job of that."

"While he was gone, huh?" Keith said. "I don't need someone looking after me."

"And yet, here we are," Adam said. "Come on, we're going to the motor pool."

Keith knew his way around an engine. He just hoped he wasn't supposed to wash things. He didn't get any instructions when they got there though, Adam just had him wait outside while he went into the office. A few minutes later, and an enlisted argonaut drove a hover bike up to the front, right as Adam came back out.

"Well, get on," Adam said.

Keith narrowed his eyes, but got on in the drivers seat. "Where are we going?" He asked.

Adam shrugged, getting on the seat behind him. "Dealer's choice."

Keith drove out into the desert. At first he just gunned it, but soon enough he started testing the limits of the bike, swerving around obstacles and over gullies and cliffs. When he got to the base of the mountain range that bordered the Garrison he just started climbing higher and higher. Eventually Adam tapped him on the shoulder and Keith pulled back on the throttle, stopping at an outcropping of rocks. Adam hopped off and, in spite of the impulse to just take off without him, Keith did as well.

Nothing was said for a while, and Keith just stared out into the desert. That feeling like he was supposed to be wandering it filled him, and for the first time he felt like there was a specific direction he was supposed to be going in,

"I'm pretty terrible at this," Adam said. "I don't know what I'm supposed to say."

"That's what Shiro was good at."

Wasn't Keith the one who was supposed to say something. Shiro was Adam's fiancé. For all Keith knew, the two of them had been soulmates. Shiro'd been the closest thing Keith had to family in this lifetime, but he knew Adam had the bigger claim.

"It doesn't get better," Keith said. "It's always going to suck. You just get used to how much it sucks." You could get used to just about anything.

"So what's happening in class?" Adam asked

Keith shrugged. "People just get on my nerves," he said.

"Have you been to behavioral health? Adam asked.

"They're not going to tell me anything I haven't heard before," Keith said. It wasn't like no one had ever thought to send him to a shrink when his dad had died.

Adam sighed and they lapsed into silence again, just watching the desert. Adam was right, he was terrible at this.

"Do you ever feel like something's out there?" Keith asked.

"Don't listen to those rumors, Keith. If aliens were out there I don't think they'd be scooping up argonauts at the edge of the solar system."

"I meant in the desert… Nevermind."

"The desert?" Adam asked.

"Like there's something pulling on you? Like there's something out there?"

Adam shook his head. "Can't say that I have. I bet you're feeling pretty cooped up at the Garrison. I guess you can say that you get used to it, but here, there is an actual end in sight. You're an amazing pilot Keith. Shiro told me that much. This is all temporary. You'll get off extra duty eventually, and then you can go blow off steam in town. Stay on track for graduation.

Adam didn't understand.

"Yeah," Keith said. "It's just like the whole Garrison's changed. I don't suppose you can pull more strings, take on the rest of my extra duty till it's over."

Adam shook his head. "You've got until Iverson's back. I don't have any strings with him." He looked at Keith hesitantly. "I'm getting edged out, Keith. Since we lost them. Whatever they say, Keith, don't believe them. I don't think they want people close…"

Keith waited for him to finish the statement. "What?" He asked.

Adam shook his head. "Just keep your head down. Come on. I should get you back."

Adam drove them back, driving in about as straight a line as they could go.

"Keep your head down," Adam said again when they got back to the motorpool. "And- I might be getting transferred. I don't know yet. Maybe Kenya, maybe Mars. Just keep your head down."

"What's going on Adam?" Keith asked.

"Nothing," Adam said. "I've got to go. Remember what I said."

Keith had a strange urge to go make sure Lance was okay. He ignored it. He had a strong urge to get back on the bike and drive it back out into the desert. He ignored that too. He didn't have time, of course, to worry about the desert. Iverson kept him busy, and there were times that Keith wanted to shake him and demand some answers.

When the IMSC World Combatives Championship came up in Amsterdam, Keith was pretty sure he would have been one of the cadets sent to represent the Garrison, like Shiro had been, but Keith was still in the shithouse with the cadre so he got left behind. It wasn't like he cared about some stupid competition, it just sucked to get left behind when he knew he belonged there.

Things just kept moving forward though, even though it felt like an eternity. He didn't have much time to keep tabs on Lance, but he noticed when the support sections ranking board changed the first day of Fall Quarter. He never heard what happened to Francis Scott, but Lance had a new science officer on his flight crew, a Pidge Gunderson. A student who had unexpectedly been transferred from the European Division of the Garrison. He wished that he had time to watch Lance in the simulator, with his new teammate, but Iverson had made it clear that the new term hadn't let him off the hook.

* * *

In the immediate aftermath, it didn't really process. Katie kept working on her projects when she wasn't dragged out of her room because somebody or other had come to see them. She didn't really remember much from these meetings, she just kept focusing on whatever she'd been interrupted from.

"Katie, honey, I made lunch," Mom said

"I'm not hungry," Katie said, affixing a new sensor to the new circuit board that was replacing the one that had gotten smashed the night before.

"Please sweetie," Mom said. "Just come and eat something. Maybe a yogurt?"

Mom sounded sad, so Katie groaned and got up from her chair.

She wound up slowly swirling a spoon through some yogurt while Mom ate. Katie usually skipped out on lunch during the week. There was no one around to remind her she needed to eat. She looked up at her mom.

"Mom," she said. "Why aren't you at work?"

"They put me on leave sweetheart," Mom said.

"There's a systems problem on the Heracles and they sent you home?" Katie asked.

Mom broke out into sobs and Katie froze, staring at her mom before her eyes swept around the dining room and the living room. The areas of the house she had been avoiding. Full of flowers and cards.

"They just need to fix it, Mom," Katie said.

"Katie there's nothing to fix," Mom said. "There's nothing left."

The Heracles was gone. Dad and Matt were gone. They weren't coming back. They were supposed to come back. They always came back. Matt promised he'd come back. Katie spent the rest of the day locked in her room.

She'd been out of the loop ever since they first lost contact with the Heracles. She'd stayed cooped up in her room and as she tried to grapple with what had happened she realized that she really didn't know what had happened. The next morning she tried to pull up some sort of report online but short of reports of the Heracles being destroyed, and numerous fluff pieces doing exposes on the crew, there really wasn't anything that had been released on what had happened.

"I want to see the logs," Katie told Mom when she went down for breakfast.

"They're not going to release those for a while," Mom said.

"Well, what do they say?" Katie asked.

"I don't know honey, I've been on leave," Mom said.

"Why?" Katie asked. "Don't you want to know? They landed safely. The most dangerous part of their mission was over, so what the hell happened? Why are you taking leave?"

"So I can be with you," Mom said. "Katie there's any number of things that could have happened."

"I don't need you here," Katie said. "I need you to tell me what happened."

"I don't know what happened, and I can't-" Mom shuddered a bit. "I can't deal with it right now. They put me on leave honey. It isn't really appropriate for me to be working on this right now."

"Appropriate?" Katie asked. "I'm talking to Commander Simmons."

"Honey-"

"I'm going," Katie stomped towards the door.

Mom didn't try to stop her.

She was still in her socks. It took her most of the walk across the base to realize that she was also still in her pajama pants and t-shirt.

"I want to see Commander Simmons," Katie said when she got into the front office.

"Do you have an appointment young lady?"

"No," Katie said. "She'll want to see me."

"What's your name?"

"Katie Holt."

That got recognition.

"My condolences Ma'am."

"I just need to see Commander Simmons," Katie said.

"Commander Simmons has been reassigned, I can see if Commander Iverson will speak to you."

Katie nodded as the argonaut walked out into the next office. She avoided looking at everyone else in the office.

"Miss Holt," a man's voice called out. She looked up to see a large man approaching her. She recognized the gold stripes on the shoulders of his uniform, the same that had been on her father's.

"Commander Iverson," Katie said, extending her hand. "I wanted to talk to you about the Heracles."

"Why don't we step into my office."

Katie nodded.

"Henderson, a coco for the young lady."

"Yes, Sir."

Katie let herself be guided into the next office.

"A terrible tragedy, Miss Holt. How are you holding up?"

"I need answers," Katie said. "You sent my mom away and she needs to be working the problem."

"Your mother's taking bereavement leave," Commander Iverson said. "Of course no one expects her to work at a time like this."

"The Garrison hasn't released any information about the Heracles," Katie said.

"We're still processing what happened," Commander Iverson said. "There's a lot of data to be reviewed. We won't be making a report until we're sure we know what happened."

"I'd like to see the data logs," Katie said.

"I'm sure you're very upset, Miss Holt. "Even if the data was in any sort of format you'd understand, it's only going to be troubling to you."

"My mom could review it with me," Katie said, ignoring the assumption that she wouldn't be able to process the data.

"Miss Holt you and your mother are in the middle of the grieving process, and the last thing we need is for partial information to be released to start rumors in the press. The world is watching us very closely right now. Your father and brother both gave their lives for a higher calling and there are some people out there, they're always out there, who don't think that mankind was meant to explore the stars. Whenever a disaster like this happens, it's important that we not leave room open to speculation until we have a firm report on what happened, lest we fuel rumors and naysayers. Your family believed in this program, and they wouldn't want their loss to cause it harm. When we do release the report, we'll make sure you and your mother get to see it first, before hand."

"I can keep a secret," Katie said.

"I'm sure you can," Commander Iverson said.

"I have Miss Holt's Coco," a voice said from the door.

"Excellent," Commander Iverson said. "It was so good talking to you, Miss Holt. You have my sincere condolences. Henderson, could you drive Miss Holt home. She shouldn't be walking around base barefoot."

A week later Mom's bereavement leave ended but she'd been transferred to a new department.

"They should have the person who helped design the systems figuring out what happened," Katie said.

"We decided it could look bad to have a family member as part of the investigation," Mom said.

"You decided?" Katie asked. "Or they decided."

"Sweetie-"

"Don't you want to know what happened?" Katie asked.

"Of course I do," Mom said. "But there's more to it than that."

"They're shutting you out," Katie said. "And what's taking them so long? The Osiris II was in range when they landed there should be plenty of information."

"I'm sure there's a lot of information," Mom said. "But it's going to be incomplete information. Honey, it's going to take time, and… You should be prepared for the possibility that there are no good answers."

Katie shook her head. "I don't accept that."

"Katie," Mom said.

"No, Mom, this whole thing stinks. They landed safely. Why was Commander Simmons transferred? She was the best person to be leading this investigation. Why are they shutting you out? Something's not right. Tell me you see that."

"Katie there's no cover up," Mom said. "I know this has been hard on you. It's been hard on me too. The memorial's in two days. Can't we just take some time? I think you'll feel better after the memorial."

There was a knock at the door and Mom went and opened it.

"Adam," Mom said. "Come in. How are you holding up?"

Katie hated that question. She went up to her room.

The memorial was horrible. There were cameras, and a ton of people who had no business being there. There were speeches about the dangers of space travel and about the brave men and women who dedicated their lives to broadening mankind's reach. At some point someone put another stupid bouquet of flowers in her hands. Katie went home afterwards and looked up Commander Iverson. She started keeping tabs on him as she started probing at the Garrison's systems.

It wasn't posted in advance, so when she found out he had just been a presenter at a conference in Geneva she hoped she'd have some time before he got back. She walked back to his office around lunchtime and stuck her head in. The office was empty. She made her way to the back where Iverson's private office was. It was locked with a digital keypad that Katie took care of quickly. Closing herself inside of his office she plugged a password cracker she'd built into his computer and started looking at things around the desk while it did its thing.

The papers left out on top of his desk were innocuous, and the desk drawers were all locked and Katie didn't know how to pick a physical lock. Less than a minute later though Iverson's computer logged itself in for her and she quickly loaded on a program that would open up a back door and erase any logs of her entry. She should have left then, but there was a file labeled Kerberos right there. She opened it. Right at the top of the folder were three files labeled Osiris Sensor Log 1, Osiris Sensor Log 2, and Osiris Sensor Log 3. She opened the first one and saw log data on the Kerberos landing from the day before to the day after. She scanned through it and opened the second one. Her eyes widened and her heart started pounding in her chest. She opened the third one. Her eyes started to water, and then she heard someone outside. She closed everything, pulled out her cracker and locked the computer. Then she hit control alt delete and hit the return button over and over again. As far as the computer was concerned, someone had just tried to log in with the wrong password too many times.

The door opened and Commander Iverson was standing right there in front of her. She opened her mouth to start laying out accusations but he got there first.

"What in the hell are you doing here?" he asked her.

"I know what you're doing," Katie said.

He lunged forward and Katie took a big step back away from the imposing man, but all he did was turn the monitor so he could look at it. All he'd see though were the words 'Account Disabled.'

"I have half a mind to have you arrested," Iverson growled.

"I thought you were worried about the publicity?" Katie asked.

"Henderson," Iverson shouted. "Get this girl out of here. Make sure she doesn't have access to the building."

"Yes, Sir."

Mom already knew when she got home.

"Katherine Holt, what on Earth were you thinking?"

"Mom, they're faking the sensor data," Katie said.

"What?" Mom asked.

"They have three different copies of the same sensor logs," Katie said. "It's like they're trying to choose between the best one."

"Katie that's ridiculous, those files are very difficult to parse through. I'm sure that's not what's going on. Honey, you need to drop this. You could have gotten into so much trouble today. I just had to beg Commander Iverson not to press any charges."

"He was never going to do that," Katie said. "Mom it's a cover up, why can't you see that."

"Katie, I can't deal with this right now. I know this has been so terrible for you, but you're seeing something that isn't there. Grief can do a lot of things to your head. You need- We need some time to process everything. Germany's going to be a good change of pace for us."

"Wait," Katie said. "Germany?"

"I'm being transferred," Mom said.

"They're transferring you because of me?" Katie asked.

"No, we've been talking about the possibility for a while," Mom said. "They want me to head up one of the development teams over there. And after today, I think its best. You need to get away from this all."

Katie had remote access to Iverson's computer, but if she didn't want to cross the base's firewalls she was going to need to stay local. She made a very fast decision.

"Actually Mom, I think you're right about that," she said. "Staying around base has been difficult for me. I'm sure it's been hard on you too. I think you should go to Germany. I don't think I can though."

"What?" Mom asked.

"It's just going to be another Garrison," Katie said. "Do you remember those schools that sent me brochures after I took that test last year?"

"Katie," Mom said.

"There's a boarding school in San Diego," Katie said. "It's got a top tier program for science and technology. I just think I need to be as far away from any space program as I can get right now."

"Boarding school?"

"Matt pretty much did boarding school," Katie said.

Mom choked on a sob.

"Mom," Katie said. "I'm sorry. I think I need this."

Mom grabbed her into a hug.

"I can't lose you too," Mom said.

"You won't be losing me," Katie said. "We can video chat every day."

"Lets cool off on this," Mom said. "Today's been… Lets talk about this tomorrow. It's been a while… It's been a while since I've looked at any of your projects. Why don't you show me what you've been working on?"

A few hours later there was a knock on the door, and for just a moment, Katie worried that Iverson had changed his mind. It was only Adam though. Katie went to her room and let them talk. She logged into her computer and checked on her back door. Iverson had already had his account fixed so it wasn't any trouble getting back in. She checked the logs from her program. They hadn't even done a scan. No one would have thought a thirteen year old would hack the account. She started copying the Kerberos folder. After that she started going through everything else. There was only one locked folder that she could find and after a bit of work she got it open only to find some rather violent porn that she really wished she hadn't seen. By the time Mom called her down for dinner she'd started trying to probe out into the network while she set a program to scrub through Iverson's emails.

"What was the name of that school?" Mom asked.

"The Nimitz Academy," Katie said. "Really good program. They'd offered me a scholarship, for room and board, and everything, remember?"

"I think you should do it," Mom said.

"Really," Katie said. She wasn't complaining, but she'd expected to have to do some more work to get it.

"I think you should get away from this all," Mom said.

"What did Adam want earlier?" Katie asked.

"He was checking up on us," Mom said. "He's actually going to be transferring to Kenya soon."

"He's getting transferred too?" Katie asked. "What a wild and crazy coincidence."

"Katie," Mom said.

"I'm getting away from this," Katie said. "Don't worry about it.

Things moved really quickly after that. She didn't have a lot of time as Mom started making arrangements to move. Katie filled out an application for the academy and had mom sign it. She'd been worried she'd need to fake an acceptance letter, but they sent one a lot sooner than she'd expected. All she had to do after that was secretly withdraw her application. It had taken her a while, but she'd gotten into the Garrison's student records. If she was going to do things properly, she was going to have to get herself an actual position at the Garrison.

She was actually going to need time to get things done, so she had no desire to enter as a first year. First she looked for any open slots, but there weren't any. She combed through the list of science officers until she found one Francis Scott. He'd put in a request to be transferred to the European Division. She did a quick check. The European Division actually had a slot open, but Scott's application had been left pending for a few weeks. It took her a bit to get the credentials, but eventually she had signed it digitally and sent it forward. Congratulations Francis Scott. Next thing she'd need was a new identity.

Katie looked at herself in the mirror. She obviously couldn't go as Katie Holt. The biggest problem was that Iverson was involved in the training program. She didn't just need a new identity, she needed a disguise or he'd recognize her instantly. Medically though, there was one big issue. If the doctors knew she was on hormone blockers they'd want to run periodic blood tests, and if anything seemed out of standard, they might want to consult wither her previous doctors.

The most obvious thing was to keep the fact that she was trans to herself. The Garrison wasn't exactly a place with a lot of privacy so the odds of her hiding the fact that she wasn't a cis girl were small. She needed to get a student photo into her file anyways so she cut her hair, put on a pair of Matt's glasses and hung up a sheet in her room and took a picture. After that she just had to photoshop her head onto the student photo of another student. A boy student. Pidge didn't sound too masculine. She meshed a few student files together to make her own. To make Pidge Gunderson. She avoided looking in the mirror after that.

Pidge Gunderson was a student at the top of the Flight Science track in the European Division. Pidge was barely passing PT though and had a slight astigmatism, but was otherwise healthy. Pidge had zero disciplinary issues and had taken two combat related electives in first year and no longer had any combat related requirements. A few clicks later and Pidge's file was in the European Divisions student folder. Then she submitted and approved herself for a transfer to the American Division. There would be a flight waiting for her between Summer and Fall quarter. Getting a passport would be trickier, but that was what the dark web was for. That would also keep her supplied with hormone blockers while she was a student as well. She'd worry about paying for that next.

Mom cried when Katie walked downstairs and she realized that she was still wearing Matt's glasses. They weren't the strongest of prescriptions.

"Your hair," Mom said.

Katie looked away. "I needed a change."

There were a lot of hugs that night, and crying on both parts. Katie felt guilty when she went through Mom's files later on. There were accounts for survivor benefits and a college fund in her name and all she needed were the account and routing numbers. She purchased some crypto currency and cycled it through some new accounts she set up around the world. Then she purchased her passport.

They flew to Germany the next week. Base housing in Germany was about the same as base housing in America. She'd been going through the ID card office's systems for a while so when they got on base Pidge told Mom she was going exploring and headed to the office.

"Hello, my name's Pidge Gunderson," Katie said, almost chewing up her assumed name. "My recruiter said I could come in and get my Garrison ID before term starts."

"I need your orders and either a Passport or state ID?" The clerk behind the desk asked. Pidge handed over her documents and the fake passport. This was going to be its first test.

A few minutes later she walked out of the office with her new ID card. The start of fall term was approaching and Pidge found herself spending a lot of time with Mom when she wasn't reading system manuals and otherwise preparing to pass herself off as a second year cadet.

"Are you sure you have everything sweetie?" Mom asked. "Yes," Pidge said. "Everything's ready."

The bags were packed, but Mom didn't know that there were several brand new Garrison uniforms tucked away inside. Using her ID card, she'd been able to purchase what she needed from the student store.

"Well come on then. We should get to the airport a little early."

Mom helped her with her bags. The drive to the airport was pretty quiet and both of them sniffled and cried a bit on the way. Mom stayed with her up until the security checkpoint and then Katie was on her own. She went to the bathroom and hid herself in a stall. She opened the bag and pulled out the outfit she'd gotten for Pidge. It was baggy, which was about the only thing she thought she could stand. She changed into the clothes and bundled up her dress. Outside, she stuffed it in the trash before feeling a pang of regret, remembering that Dad had bought that for her for her first day of Middle School. She wasn't going to go to the Garrison with any dresses though. Pidge pulled out her phone and called the airline and canceled Katie's flight. Yes, she did realize that she couldn't get a refund. Pulling out the battery she put her phone into a faraday bag in her backpack and pulled out Pidge's phone that she'd gotten earlier in the week. She walked out the security checkpoint and went to the ticketing window.

"My name's Pidge Gunderson, I have a flight to Los Angeles."

"Passport please."

Katie smiled, pulling out the document.

Katie's investigation had gotten about as far as it was going to go. Katie couldn't stay in the American Division. Katie had gotten her about as far as she could get. It was time for Pidge to pick up the investigation. Pidge was going to find out what really happened to her family. Pidge could do anything Katie needed her to. She would be Pidge until she got her answers. She would be Pidge until it was all over.

* * *

The end of Summer quarter marked the end of Lance's first year and Veronica's fourth. Family came for her graduation, and Lance got to show them around the public areas of the base. Veronica would be shipping out for her first assignment a few weeks later, a survey mission on Titan. After their family went back home, Veronica got them a hotel room in Tucson for the rest of the week of vacation. Lance found himself missing the simulator.

Lance gave Veronica a big hug when they got back to the Garrison at the end of break. She'd be shipping out to Kenya for pre-mission prep and an equatorial launch.

"Stay safe," he told her.

"Just a standard mission," Veronica said. "Nothing to worry about."

It wasn't quite standard, it was a good gig for a graduate; she was top of her class. It wasn't exactly adventurous or exotic though, either. About as safe as a survey mission on Mars except for a longer flight and a trip through the main asteroid belt, which Lance had been assured, more than once, didn't actually require asteroid dodging.

Getting back to the dorm provided a bit of a shock for Lance, seeing as a new cadet was moving into Francis' bunk.

"What the hell?" Lance asked.

"Transfer student," the cadet said. "From the European Division. The name's Pidge Gunderson. Call me Pidge. Are you Lance?"

"Yeah, what happened to Francis?"

Pidge shrugged. "I dunno," he said, pulling a brand new stack of boxers out of their packaging and shoving them in a drawer. "Hey, I turned all my equipment back in to CIF in Europe, can you show me where I can get my initial issue?"

"Yeah, sure," Lance said, moving aside so the other boy could exit their room. "They didn't say anything about Francis?"

"Nope," Pidge said. "So what do I need to know about the Garrison here?"

"Oh, uh, watch out for Commander Iverson. Lieutenant Commander Botende's pretty cool. Do not eat the tacos on taco Tuesday. Oh, and apparently, don't trust anyone, because they'll disappear without saying goodbye."

"Sorry about that," Pidge said.

"Not your fault," Lance said.

"Hey, so what have you been hearing about the Heracles?"

"I've been waiting for the report," Lance said.

"Yeah, but American Division was in charge of the mission. There's probably some rumors going around."

"I'm sure there are," Lance said. "So tell me about Europe. Do you really country hop during vacation."

"I just studied in the dorm," Pidge said. "I've got some projects I'm working on. Sort of self study, you know."

"Right on," Lance said. "Hunk says we get all the prototypes first, so you'll probably like it here. So why'd you transfer?"

"Hunk was right," Pidge said. "Also, who's Hunk?"

"Our engineer," Lance said.

"I thought his name was Aputi."

"He goes by Hunk," Lance said.

They were outside CIF.

"Are you going to need help getting back?"

"I think I can remember the way."

"I meant with all the stuff," Lance said. Pidge looked twelve, and the initial issue wasn't exactly light.

"I'll manage," Pidge said.

"Right," Lance said. "Well, I'll see you. Hunk should be around. We could all get dinner together."

"Actually, I'm pretty jet lagged. I think I'll turn in early."

"Oh, yeah, alright."

Hunk was in their room when he got back.

"What the hell happened to Francis?" Lance asked.

"Dude, he moved out on Friday," Hunk said. "He said he'd put in for the transfer a few months ago. His brother's been sick and he wanted to be closer to home."

"He never said anything," Lance said.

Hunk shrugged. Francis had always been aloof. Lance supposed there was nothing for it except to send a goodbye text later.

"Okay, well our new science officer is named Pidge Gunderson and he's from the European Division, and I don't know how they do things there, but I want to make sure he's up to scratch, you know? Can we focus on the simulator for a bit, make sure we mesh well. I don't want our team to fall behind."

"Yeah," Hunk said. "I can do that, but next Saturday I'm going to the seminar on the Dyson Project."

"I figured," Lance said. "So tell me about your vacation, anything fun on base?"

Lance had been hoping to get into the simulator as soon as term started, but with a new crew mate, he really wanted to get some free sim time before they had to do anything for class. No such luck though. Monday morning, bright and early and they found themselves in the simulator. Pidge obviously knew what he was doing with the systems, but he absolutely sucked at teamwork. Lance wondered if they even did Total Crew Operations in first year at the European Division. Lance didn't even want to look at the rankings after that disastrous run.

In the face of opposition, Lance managed to drag Pidge to the simulators after class, along with Hunk, so they could run it again, and again. Francis had always given off the impression that he liked to work alone, but Pidge didn't seem to have any concept of teamwork. They'd work on it, but first they needed to make sure the new cadet could at least make it through class.

It went the same way the next day. Fighter class had free sim, so Lance pulled out his mockpit and a few scenarios and sat Pidge down and went line by line making sure he knew procedure and how he was supposed to interact with the crew. When his phone started buzzing he ignored it, and gave Pidge the stink eye when it looked like he was going to go checking his own.

"Is this really necessary?" Pidge asked again.

"I don't know how things were where you came from," Lance said. "But there's no room for error here. We're training for real life, which means life and death, and besides that, the new Commander's a piece of work, so don't think you can get away with not knowing this stuff."

"Yeah, plus Lance is obsessed with getting into fighter class," Hunk said.

"That's not the point," Lance said.

Pidge rolled his eyes. "The point is that I didn't come to the Garrison to sit next to a cardboard box. I have projects to work on."

"You can work on extracurriculars when you've got the basics down," Lance said.

"Well how about we take a break," Hunk said. "The galley's going to close soon, and I'd rather eat there than get a freezer meal from the student store." Which said a lot about the freezer meals.

Lance sighed. They hadn't made as much progress as he would have liked.

Suddenly there was a nock at the door and Lance jumped up to get it. Outside was an enlisted argonaut who Lance had seen working in Lieutenant Commander Botende's office.

"Cadet Sanchez?"

"That's me, Petty Officer."

"You're being summoned to see Lieutenant Commander Botende. Also, check your phone in the future."

Lance paled a bit, wondering what was wrong.

"Just a moment," Lance said. He grabbed his uniform top from off his chair and put it on over his undershirt.

"Do you know what this is about, petty officer?" Lance asked.

"I know that it's between you and the commander."

"Right," Lance said, still not sure if he was in trouble for anything.

When they got into the office, Lance thought it would be best to just be direct.

"Good evening Ma'am, I know I bombed the simulation yesterday. We have a new teammate and we've been working nonstop since then to make sure we mesh in the cockpit."

"That's good to hear cadet." Lieutenant Commander Botende said. "That's the sort of proactive behavior I've come to expect from you. Though I've also come to expect a bit of reckless behavior from you as well, and seeing as I just booted an impulsive cadet from the program less than an hour ago, I thought you and I should have a chat."

"Reckless? Me? Ma'am, I always show a proper understanding of protocol."

"Yes, and then you break protocol."

"I'm just trying to get as much out of the simulator as I can, Ma'am. I want to be prepared for anything and everything. There's nothing I take more seriously than the safety of my ship and my crew."

"That is good to hear. I would hate to lose two fighter pilots, after all."

"Fighter pilot?"

"This is rather sudden," Lieutenant Commander Botende said. "But I myself thought it best to be proactive. A slot has opened up, Cadet, and there are some on the staff who don't think you belong in fighter class, in spite of the rankings. Commander Iverson is a bit difficult to shake after he has set his mind to something, so as he is a bit preoccupied right now, I'd like to be able to have your new Flight Aptitude Test ready to show him tomorrow when the flight staff start nominating cadets to take the slot. Assuming you pass, of course."

"Yes, Ma'am, I will," Lance said. "No doubt about it, I'm ready."

"Good, I have already spoken to medical. You took a twelve hour dose of your medication this morning?"

"Yes, Ma'am. Zero six hundred hours."

"Then we add an hour just to be on the safe side, and that means you have a half an hour to get ready for the test."

"Yes Ma'am, and, well, thank you Ma'am."

"Thank me by becoming a damned good fighter pilot, Cadet."

"I will, Ma'am."

They left him to his own devices after that. He wasn't allowed to leave the office so he sat at an empty desk that was probably used by some enlisted pencil pusher during the day and psyched himself up for the test. Or rather, he calmed himself down. Everything was very sudden, and suddenly everything he'd been working for since he was twelve was resting on a test he was going to be taking that night. As much as he had prepared for this, as much as he had prepared for specifically this test, he was incredibly nervous for the outcome.

After what seemed like forever, it was time to take the test.

Spacial reasoning went well. It was nothing compared to what he was used to in the cockpit. Hand eye coordination had never been an issue to begin with, and he'd gotten his reaction times down significantly since the last time he'd taken the test. Memory hadn't exactly been a problem the first go around, but he figured he'd probably done a few points better. The last test, of course was for focus, and that was the test he had practiced the most over the past quarter. Just like every time he practiced, he let his eyes lose focus and he focused on his breathing, not letting himself get distracted by the images on the screen while he listened to the tones over the headphones, ready to toggle the switch every time he heard the right series of tones.

Lieutenant Commander Botende was smiling when the results printed out, and Lance didn't have to be told to know that he'd passed.

"Is there anything else I need to do Ma'am?" Lance asked.

"Don't be too surprised if you're told to move classes soon. You and your crew."

"So that means-"

"That means I will be informing Commander Iverson that there is a promising and qualified cadet ready to be moved into fighter class tomorrow. What he does with that is up to him, Cadet."

"Yes Ma'am. I won't get my hopes up."

"I think it is perhaps too late for that. Go have some fun, Cadet. If nothing else, you've earned it."

"Yes, Ma'am." Lance said. "Thank you, Ma'am."

He practically ran back to the barracks.

"Hunk," he said when he opened the door. "You're not going to believe this."

Hunk had a bit of a morose look about him when Lance walked in, and Pidge was nowhere to be seen.

"What's going on?" Lance asked.

"They released the report on the Heracles mission," Hunk said.

Lance instantly felt his spirits drop. "So, what happened?"

Hunk glanced at the poster over Lance's bunk before saying. "It basically boils down to pilot error."

Lance shook his head. "They'd already landed."

"The report said that the landing site wasn't stable so they tried to do a short hop to the secondary landing site."

"Oh," Lance said, but it still didn't sound right. How could the Heracles have been lost to pilot error when it had had the best pilot at the helm? "What happened to Pidge?"

"He didn't seem to take it well," Hunk said. "Not sure where he went. Hey, what was your thing?"

"What?" Lance asked.

"You said something was up when you came in," Hunk said.

"Oh," Lance said. "Yeah, we're probably getting bumped up to fighter class. They lost a pilot. Expelled, I mean."

"Oh, hey man, congratulations."

"Yeah," Lance said.

"So like we're going to be bumped up?"

"Yeah man, we're a team," Lance said.

"And now you've got free license to try all the maneuvers you aren't supposed to do in a cargo ship," Hunk said.

"You'll get used to it," Lance said. "This'll be great." He tried to sound like something great was happening. "Hey, um, it should be early morning in Kenya, I'm going to call my sister."

"Yeah man," Hunk said. "Did you ever eat?"

"Yeah," Lance lied. He didn't feel very hungry.

* * *

Keith honestly wasn't sure how much longer he could last, and in the end, he'd never know. Two days into term and the Garrison released its official report on the Kerberos Mission Failure. "Pilot error," the report said. Keith had taken one look at Iverson's smug face that evening when he'd shown up for extra duty and he'd decked him.

The following morning he found himself at the bus stop outside the Garrison, waiting for the transport that would take him to the train station in town, a duffle bag with his own possessions on his left, and another one that Petty Officer Gant had handed him with items from Shiro's quarters. He was supposed to go back to the Shiroganes, now that he'd washed out. He still hadn't really felt the impact of that.

The knowledge that he would never make it to space, that he would never find the answers he was looking for, that his soulmate would leave Earth without him; he knew it, but he didn't really feel it yet. Lance was going to space someday. What would Keith do? There were commercial crews that launched to Mars, but they'd never take a Garrison washout.

As he waited though, he felt something else. Something that he'd felt before. A feeling that had been growing and growing. The pull towards the desert. The idea that there was something out there waiting for him.

He never made it onto his bus. He did manage to sneak into the motor pool. He had plenty of memories of sneaking around, both from his current life and his previous ones. Someone was loading up a hoverbike, and as they went back into the supply room for more, Keith hopped on and took off. By the time anyone gave chase he was already over the horizon. When he checked the small cargo hatch later, he was pleased to find some rations, and a fair bit alarmed to find some C4. He rode far out into the desert, far from the Garrison, and he still didn't know what he was looking for, but he felt like he knew which way to go, he felt like he had started something.

* * *

Veronica was, of course, ecstatic for him, even though he stressed that it wasn't set in stone. The following day after classes he got the news. It was official. There was no fanfare. He got a new patch and the following day he showed up with Hunk and Pidge to the simulator with the rest of the fighter section. There were a lot of calculating stares and not a lot of smiles from the pilots. That was when Lance found out exactly who had been expelled and why.

Keith Gyeong had decked Iverson, and for some reason Pidge had grinned at this retelling, but the boy whose face Lance had been looking forward to seeing as he walked into his new class wasn't there and Lance supposed it was a stupid way to get what he wanted.

His drilling with Pidge paid off, and they did well enough in the simulator. Not great, of course. About as well as could be expected really. It was a new ship, new protocols, though finally Lance got to pull some of the maneuvers he could never get away with in the cargo sim. In spite of the feeling that there was something wrong with getting into Gyeong's fighter slot, it was a good day. Right up to when Lance shot off an email over lunch to the whole family telling them the news, and got an email that evening from Marco asking why Rolando had burst into tears upon hearing the news.

That night he finally read the actual report on the Kerberos mission. It all just sat wrong with him. There was nothing technically wrong with it, but it all felt wrong. Hunk eventually got him to start on his homework, but by then the dose he'd taken after lunch had worn off and all he could think about was Kerberos. He scraped by enough to call his homework done and then he pulled up schematics and protocols for the fighter. He stayed up late that night working out new scenarios. He needed to be ready for everything. Later, when Pidge actually went to bed, Lance was a bit surprised to find that it was already three in the morning.

The following day was Friday and after classes Lance hauled his mockpit out of his closet and quickly realized that it would need to be drastically altered. He didn't have time for that. His new class didn't have free sim until Sunday. Hunk dragged him away for dinner before he finished modifications, and Lance spent the meal asking him about technical failures they should train for. Pidge had disappeared off to somewhere but Lance convinced Hunk to run through a scenario with him after dinner before Hunk got Lance to work on their homework together.

That weekend, Lance combed the archives for reports on past mission failures, and after that he started looking for old aviation logs. Most of them were critical equipment malfunctions. Most of them were caused by things outside of the pilots' control, but where there had been pilot error, Lance was a bit disgruntled to find that there wasn't just this one failure that showed up time and again. It was everything. Here, it was ridiculous mission hours and no sleep. There, it was miscorrection to minor malfunctions. There were a few that stemmed from a failure to do checks. But there were so many more, and Lance tried to take some few key takeaways, but the list kept growing and growing.

A week later, Veronica's ship launched, and Lance was a nervous wreck. He called his family and stayed on the phone with them until they had confirmation that the ship was in orbit. Two months to Titan, and then they'd spend another month doing surveying. Then a stay over at the Mars Space Station for a layover before everything aligned for a return trip home. All in all, Veronica's first mission was going to last six months, and Lance hated it. At least they could stay in contact by email.

A couple of days later, Veronica's ship left orbit and Lance got back to work. He trained like hell. Ultimately, he decided that he didn't have time for the swim team. He needed to be better. He needed to be ready. He was starting from the bottom, on a new ship, practicing new maneuvers, but by the end of the quarter he had left the bottom ten. He just had to push nineteen more pilots out of the way and he'd be on top. When he got on the transport to the train station at the end of Fall Quarter, he realized that he'd never once gone into town for the weekend during the entirety of the quarter.

Being back with his family for the Holiday was wonderful. The twins were ecstatic to see him and Camila dragged him down to the pool to teach her the butterfly stroke soon after he got there. She had shot up a bit since the last time he'd been home, and he thought Rolando was a bit put out by the height difference. It felt great to get back in the water. He wasn't sure that he'd realize that he'd missed it. Tío Mateo took him to the shooting range and Lance had a few things to teach him instead.

Besides that though, everything was the same. Lance had felt like the world had changed somehow when the Heracles had gone dark, but everything was moving along like normal. By the end of the first week of vacation he was itching to get back into the cockpit. He couldn't afford to get rusty. Mamá chastised him for having one of his textbooks out at the dinner table.

When he got back to the Garrison the evening before Winter quarter, Lance went and pulled the third year training manual for the fighter and went back to his room and pulled out his mockpit. One week in and he'd moved up two slots. Two weeks in and Veronica's ship left Titan and started its journey to Mars. Three weeks later and lance was getting to bed later than Pidge. By the end of the first month, Lance started slipping in the ranks.

His response was to train harder. The thing was, that there was just so many ways for things to go wrong, and if he wasn't the best, then how could he make sure that things didn't end in disaster. All he had to do was even bring up the topic and Hunk could go on for hours about all the ways you could get your crew killed. Of course, Hunk had an unshakeable faith in his own abilities, the sort that Lance figured actually got people killed. The sort of cockiness that had him sure he knew the solution to a problem before he'd run diagnostic protocols.

"Oh, it's just the neutron absorber," Hunk said. "We don't need it, I can just shut it down."

"You don't know that," Lance said. "Do the proper checks."

"Dude I'm telling you it's the neutron absorber."

"You've got to follow the protocol," Lance said.

"It's free sim," Hunk said. "You break protocol all the time," Hunk said, reaching over to the ion controls.

"Stop it," Lance said, turning around in his chair. "That's an order. Diagnose the problem first, if you're right you can turn it off. We're in atmo, this is the last place to start breaking protocols. And besides, I break protocols to push the limits of what we've been taught, you just want to ignore what they teach in class 'cause you think you're smarter than the teachers."

"Incoming," Pidge's voice called out. "Sanchez pull up."

"Incoming?" Lance asked, turning back around, his heart skipping a beat. He looked out the cockpit window but all he saw was blue skies. "Pidge, where?"

"Look at radar, just pull up!"

Suddenly the ship lurched and the damn red letters flashed up on the view screens. 'All Hands Lost.'

"No," Lance said. "Wait no… I- Shit…" What happened, what had he done? That hadn't even been in the scenario. He'd just gotten them all killed. He'd been distracted. He'd gotten them killed. He'd gotten them killed. He'd gotten them all killed.

Suddenly someone punched him in the arm.

"Cadet Sanchez, Respond!" The voice broke through and Lance looked up to realize that he had zoned out. Pidge was looking at him like he was a bug.

"Here flight, I'm… That wasn't in the simulation."

"I like to throw in a curveball when my pilot starts bickering with his engineer. Your sim time is over, make room for the next crew."

"Roger, flight," Lance said.

Lance got out of his chair and made his way quickly out of the room, avoiding the glances of the other crews waiting for the simulator. Ordinarily he'd get back in line, but he just left. He went back to his quarters and pulled out his mockpit and took things from the top. Unfortunately, the following day didn't go much better.

"Hey, Sanchez," Villareal called out from where he was sitting with a gaggle of fighter pilots in the galley. "Spectacular crash yesterday. Were you auditioning to become a cargo pilot again?" There was a lot of laughter for that.

"Oh, hah hah," Lance called back. "I didn't see you laughing when I passed you in the rankings."

"Yeah, and you're sliding your way back to the bottom right now," Villareal called back.

"Just ignore them," Hunk said.

"They think this is a joke," Lance said, gripping his silverware tightly enough to be painful.

"Did you even see him trying to recalibrate his trans induction coils yesterday?" Hunk asked. "Now that was a joke."

He heard more laughter from the other table.

Lance stood up. "Do you think this is a joke?" He called back, beginning to hear his blood rushing in his ears.

"Well, I mean, you are," Villareal said to more laughter.

"Shut up, just shut up! This isn't a joke. What do you think we're doing here? You think you can just go around treating this like its some stupid competition. Do you think your ship cares if you live or die? Do you think space is going to hesitate to kill your ass dead? It just takes one little mistake and then you're dead, and your crew is dead, and your passengers are dead because of something stupid like forgetting to check the stupid fucking fuel oxygenator before takeoff! And you just want to sit here with your stupid jokes like you don't still make the same stupid sort of mistakes. Like you think you're too cool to take this seriously. Well I take this seriously, and when you're getting sucked into the black void of space, I'm going to be sitting in my cockpit, doing things right and keeping my crew alive!"

Villareal looked at him like he was crazy. No, everyone was. Everyone in the galley was staring at him because he'd been shouting. He'd been screaming. His heart still pounding, Lance walked out of the room and into the nearest bathroom where he locked himself in a stall and waited for their lunch period to end. He waited for his heart to stop hammering in his chest.

He waited till just before class started to go in and take his seat in History. Hunk shot him a questioning look, but Ms. Kim always started class on the dot. Lance doodled in his notebook while she talked about the Enlightenment, something he hadn't done since middle school. When class finally let out he was the first one up from his desk, and grabbing his bag he headed to combat marksmanship.

Sniper training had been going well, and Lance was looking forward to clearing his head and just focusing on his shooting. He grabbed his flack vest and helmet from his locker at the range but was stopped when he tried to check his rifle from the armory.

"You've got a hold," Petty Officer Jones told him.

"A hold?" Lance asked.

"You're account has a hold. I can't issue you a weapon."

"What am I supposed to do in class Petty Officer?"

"Sanchez?" Someone asked from behind.

Lance turned around and saw a Petty Officer he'd never seen before. He had a caduceus patch on his shoulder.

"Here Petty Officer," Lance said.

"You've got an appointment with medical."

Lance shook his head. "I should be green on everything."

"I can't discuss your medical file in a public setting," the Petty Officer told him.

Lance took off his helmet and walked towards his locker. "Is this why I've got a hold?"

"Maybe," the Petty Officer said. "Let's go get it taken care of so you can get back to training."

Lance pulled the vest off over his head and quickly stowed it in his locker. This really wasn't the sort of thing he needed, and he just hoped he could get it straightened out quickly. Sick cadets were expected to show up to medical before breakfast if they wanted to be excused from the day's classes, so after lunch, there probably wouldn't be a line. Unfortunately medical was on the other side of the training area. Of course when he got there they couldn't just send him to the doctor for whatever it was, they had to do height and weight, blood pressure, temperature, pulse oxidation, and ask him about any medications he was on, as if they weren't already the only place Lance would be getting something prescribed. Finally though, he was left in an exam room looking at the medical posters on the wall.

There was a nock on the door and an older man in civilian clothes and a lab coat walked in.

"Cadet Sanchez?"

"Yes Sir," Lance said.

"Dr. Black," he introduced himself. "Relax, no need to stand at attention. Can I call you Lance?"

"Uh, yeah, but I'm not sure why I'm here," Lance said.

"There were some concerns over your health," Dr. Black told him.

"I'm fine," Lance said.

"Have you been getting enough sleep, Lance?" Dr. Black asked.

Lance resisted the urge to look in the mirror that was over the sink.

"Just some late nights," Lance said. "Burning the midnight oil, you know?"

"Nothing's been bothering you?"

"No," Lance said. "I sleep just fine when I get to bed."

"So why don't you tell me about this incident in the galley?" Dr. Black asked.

"Is that what this is about?" Lance asked. "I just blew off a bit of steam."

"You said that one of your fellow cadets was going to die."

"Because he doesn't take anything seriously," Lance said.

"He doesn't take you seriously?"

"He doesn't take space seriously," Lance said. "Carelessness gets people killed. Did he say I threatened him?"

"He hasn't said anything to anyone as far as I know. It sounds like you were pretty upset."

"I was just having a bad day," Lance said.

"Well Lance, I've already had a bit of a look at your school record. It looks like your grades have been taking a dip this quarter. Would it be fair to say that whatever has been going on has been going on for more than a day?"

"I really am fine though," Lance said. "I'll apologize to Cadet Villareal. I'm not sick or anything."

"Have you been thinking about death a lot lately?" Dr. Black asked.

"I take the dangers of space travel seriously," Lance said.

"Have you had any thoughts about hurting yourself?" Dr. Black asked.

"No," Lance said. "Seriously, no."

"What about hurting anyone else?"

"That's the opposite of what I've been doing," Lance said.

"What have you been doing?" Dr. Black asked.

"Making sure I'm the best pilot I can be so I don't get my crew killed," Lance said.

"Well there's nothing wrong with that," Dr. Black said.

"So I'm good?" Lance asked.

"Probably," Dr. Black said. "Not my decision though. I'm just doing an initial evaluation. Behavioral health will have to clear your hold."

"Behavioral health?" Lance asked.

"Psychiatry," Dr. Black said. "Just an evaluation."

"I've got a psych hold?" Lance asked.

"Safety hold," Dr. Black said.

"I'm not crazy, or anything like that."

"Then I'm sure that's what they'll find," Dr. Black said. "We'll try to get you an appointment sometime this next week."

"Well, what happens until then?" Lance asked.

"You go to classes," Dr. Black said. "Combat Marksmanship will have to wait until you get your hold taken care of though."

"I seriously just lost my temper," Lance said.

"Does a pilot who looses his temper sound like a safe pilot to you?" Dr. Black asked.

That brought Lance up short. "I'll work on it," he said.

"Work on it with psych," Dr. Black said. "Honestly most of your fellow cadets could do with a check in with behavioral health. Everyone's got issues Lance. Sometimes it helps to talk things out. Anyways, that's it for us. They'll set you up with an appointment at the front desk. You're cleared to go to your next afternoon class."

Lance sighed. "Thanks Dr. Black." He walked out of the room and got his appointment, feeling lucky to get one for the following Tuesday. The sooner he got this cleared up the better. He checked his watch. He could still catch the last half hour of English.

Lance got dinner to go that night and tried to catch up in his studies. He just needed them to get off his case so he could focus on being a pilot. When Hunk got back from dinner he sidestepped questions about lunch by asking him about the components of the pulse ion engine. Pidge came back just before curfew, took a moment to get brushed off by Lance when he asked about Villareal, before going to his own project.

Hunk had talked him into doing his English homework and halfway through he filled his electric kettle and made tea. When he smelled chamomile and saw a somewhat shifty look on Hunk's face, Lance figured out his angle. For the first time in a long while Lance actually went to bed at an hour his mother would have approved of.

The final flight operations class of the week was miserable, since everyone knew about Lance's blow up and that he had gotten kicked out of Combat Marksmanship for the week. Hunk was good about it all though, he was very nosy and knew all the gossip, so after class he spent a good long while spilling all the details about the other pilots who'd been jerks. Lance didn't really care about any of that, but it was nice that Hunk was on his side.

The thing was that everything was different in fighter section. He'd been friendly with most of the support pilots. They were all competitive, but there hadn't ever been anything hostile to it. That wasn't the case since he'd transferred though. The fighter pilots had cliques, none of which Lance was a part of, and all of them seemed to view each other as obstacles. Fighter class was everything he'd wanted and worked towards, but he couldn't deny that he'd been a lot happier in the support section.

Lance did his best to catch up over the weekend. He even got some decent sleep. As long as he could convince the therapist that everything was okay, then everything would be okay. He figured he just needed to act a bit contrite, agree with anything the therapist told him to do, and then he could get on with his life. His appointment was for the same time as he was supposed to be in Combat Marksmanship and instead of being anxious for the appointment, he was just relieved to be getting done with it when it finally came.

He wasn't surprised to see it was another civilian.

"Come on in Cadet," she said. "My name's Dr. Lively. Can I call you Lance?"

"Uh, yeah," Lance said. "You're a doctor."

"I'm a clinical psychiatrist," she said. "I work at Osler General Hospital in town, but I contract with the Garrison as needed. You can call me Carol by the way. Do you have any questions before we begin?"

"Do you decide whether or not I stay at the Garrison?" Lance asked.

"No," Dr. Lively said. "I make a recommendation, but your command ultimately makes that decision."

That meant yes.

"Now to be clear, that is all I tell the garrison," Dr. Lively told him. "I give them a basic assessment. I don't tell them anything you tell me."

Which still meant that what he said to her mattered to his future.

"Okay, well, I mean I told Dr. Black already, but I just got into a bit of an argument with another pilot and ran my mouth off a bit. I'd love to talk to you about some tips for how I can mind my temper."

"I'm sure we'll talk about that," Dr. Lively said. "But it sounded like there was an incident the day before in the simulator."

Lance wished he'd gotten to see everything they'd given the therapist before hand.

"Oh, that. I just really got into the simulation and I didn't really handle the mission failure well. I'd also pulled a few all nighters recently. I'm keeping an eye on my sleep now though."

"That's good to hear," Dr. Lively said. "And I'm going to want to talk about what happened last week, but I'd like to do a bit more of a full evaluation. I just want to have a better idea of where you're coming from first. Tell me about yourself."

This was looking less and less like a quick meeting. Lance wasn't sure where to start with telling someone about himself, certainly not someone who'd probably already reviewed his personnel file. He told her about how he'd worked to get into the garrison, and she kept asking questions about family members whenever they came up so he gave her a rundown of what things were like at home, and then since it seemed like the place everything would come back to, he told her about getting into fighter class. When he mentioned practicing in the mockpit she asked him about the scenarios he practiced.

Finally she asked him about what happened in the simulator and the galley.

"Safety's very important to you," Dr. Lively said.

"Well, yeah," Lance said. "It should be important to everyone."

"Would it be fair to say that it hadn't always been a priority?" Dr. Lively asked.

Lance shrugged. "Maybe I've matured a bit since I got here. That's good right?"

"You keep looking for my approval," Dr. Lively said.

"Don't I sort of need your approval?" Lance asked.

"I think you should be more focused on your own approval," she said.

"That's not going to keep me at the garrison," Lance said.

"Being a pilot has been rather stressful for you. To be honest the focus of everything you decided to tell me about yourself was centered around your quest to become a fighter pilot for the garrison, but I never really got any indication that this is something that you enjoy."

"I do, though," Lance said. "I love being a pilot."

"Why, though?" Dr. Lively asked.

Lance struggled to think of something to say. "There's just this feeling, when I do something awesome in the simulator, or when I solve a problem. I feel…" He wasn't sure what that feeling was. "It's good."

"So when was the last time you felt like that?" Dr. Lively

That brought Lance up short. "All the time," he lied.

"Can I hazard a guess that you haven't fell much like that since the Kerberos disaster? Maybe since the report came out?"

Lance nodded hesitantly. "Am I that transparent?" he asked.

Dr. Lively shook her head. "Lance I figured that out when I looked at your file. It wasn't exactly a leap. It's normal for something like that to reframe how you think of piloting."

"It doesn't feel like everyone else has been doing the same," Lance said.

"I expect most of your fellow cadets have been impacted by the disaster," Dr. Lively said. "In their own way. We all internalize things differently. Some people seek out humor, others try to push it out of their minds, and some try to reconcile an unpredictable universe by trying to prepare for everything when they can't."

"But you can," Lance said. "At least you can avoid making stupid mistakes. It wasn't unavoidable, if he'd checked the fuel oxidizer they'd be back on their way to Earth right now."

"Is that what you think happened?" Dr. Lively asked.

"The report said the fuel oxidizer failed in midflight. If they'd done the proper checks before hand, it could have been avoided. Shiro was supposed to be the best, but he got his crew killed, and I'm not doing that to my crew, or their families, or my family. I've got to be ready for anything."

"I read that report before I came to see you Lance. The Heracles was at the edge of the solar system; there hadn't been any radio transmissions since they landed. The Garrison put together satellite images and sensor readings and did their best to figure out what caused the crash. They don't really know if those checks were done or not. They had landed on an unstable surface; they may not have had the time to do those checks. They could have done those checks and still not identified the problem. It was an experimental ship. Everything was new, on an unexplored moon."

"No," Lance said. "They could have… They should have… There was something. There's always something. This was avoidable. You're acting like it was fate. Like they could have done everything right and it would have still happened."

"From what I've read in the report," Dr. Lively said. "That very well could be the case."

"Well, what am I still supposed to do with that?" Lance asked.

"That's up to you," Dr. Lively. "I'm sure your instructors appreciate a dedication to safety and protocol. But it seems that you've passed a point where its become unhealthy, and you've actually become a worse pilot for it."

"I just need to get more sleep," Lance said.

"Anxiety makes sleep difficult," Dr. Lively said.

"I don't have anxiety problems," Lance said.

"Chronically, no, I don't expect that you do," Dr. Lively said. "But it seems readily apparent that you're suffering from an acute anxiety disorder and without treatment it could turn into a chronic issue."

The words 'anxiety disorder' echoed in his mind. He shook his head. "You acted like I had a chance!" He accused, willing himself not to cry. "But you diagnosed me from the beginning and now they're going to send me home."

"I'm not recommending they send you home," Dr. Lively said. "I don't give them a diagnosis, I give them a recommendation, and I haven't seen a reason to tell them you can't become a pilot. I am going to tell them that you have a treatment plan and that we should meet up now and then to check on your progress."

That wasn't what Lance had been expecting.

"And what if I don't make progress?" Lance asked.

"I don't expect that that will be the case, but it may then be the case that I would recommend that your treatment would be better suited to a home environment. And to be fair Lance, I didn't diagnose you before you walked in. It's just like you told your engineer last week. Just because you think you know what the problem is doesn't mean you don't still run the diagnostic."

"So, I can stay?" Lance asked.

"The Garrison has invested a lot in you Lance. I think the more important question is do you want to stay?"

"Of course I do," Lance said.

"It seems like it's been a while since you've felt good about your place here, Lance," Dr. Lively said.

"I can get that back," Lance said.

"Good," Dr. Lively said. "I want to work with you on that."

"Isn't anxiety a bit more important than whether or not I have fun in the simulator?" Lance asked.

"I think we'll approach this from both angles," Dr. Lively said.

"I can really stay?"

"My recommendation now is that you do," Dr. Lively said. "But you're going to have to work at taking care of yourself."

"I'm good at working hard," Lance said.

"Good. My first recommendation is that you take a break."

"Um."

"You're not even halfway through your second year and you've been pulling the third year curriculum. It's no wonder your grades have been slipping."

"How is studying ahead bad for my grades?" Lance asked.

"Because you're supposed to be learning this year's material," Dr. Lively said. "From now on I don't want you practicing anything that you won't be covering in class within the next month."

"But I need to be prepared," Lance said.

"You will be," Dr. Lively said. "Everything you've been teaching yourself will get taught in due time. You need to give yourself time to learn it when it's time to learn it. Next, I need you to dedicate yourself to eight hours of sleep each night."

"But I need the time," Lance protested.

"Plenty of accidents happen because people haven't been sleeping," Dr. Lively said. "But more importantly, it's good for your mental health."

There was a lot more. There was self care. There was talking more to his family. There was literally mandatory fun. One of the interesting things though was that he literally got prescribed time in the simulator over a couple of weekends. Not with the regular scenarios, but the sort of scenarios where he got to try out a dogfight with an enemy jet, no science officer, no engineer, just Lance trying to pull off as many tricky maneuvers as he could. There was another scenario where he literally got to dodge around comets like he was in the millennium falcon. There weren't any system failures, there was just piloting for the fun of it.

A lot of what Dr. Lively had counseled him on wasn't easy though. Trying to let go of what had happened was hard. He felt a bit better when he tracked down a new poster online to replace the one he'd torn down weeks earlier, this one with the whole crew instead of just Shiro, though it was a lot pricier now.

"What's that," Pidge asked.

"Face mask," Lance said. "You want one?"

"Umm… face masks are for girls," Pidge said.

"Suit yourself," Lance said. "But you're right. Face masks are for girls, and they're going to be all over me when my acne clears up."

Girls were once more on Lance's mind. He had gone into town with Hunk a few days prior. It had been the first time he'd gone into town in ages. Lance had actually managed to strike up a few conversations with some of the local girls and he was looking forward to an opportunity to try again.

"Hey, you should come out with us," Lance said. They had a terrible team dynamic and Lance had been too focused on his own shit to take care of it like he should. "There's these caverns outside town. With um… shit… estalactita- what's the English?"

"Stalagtite," Pidge provided. "I've got better things to do than hang out in a cave."

"It's not about the cave," Lance said. "It's about hanging out outside of the garrison. As a team."

"Hanging out as a team in a cave," Pidge said.

"There could be some girls there," Lance said.

"I've got too much on my plate right now," Pidge said.

"Yeah, that's what I would have said a week ago, and look where that got me," Lance said.

"I'm not mindlessly seeking out perfection," Pidge said. "I've got actual goals and plans."

"So what are you working on," Lance said. "You've never said."

"That's proprietary," Pidge said.

"What?" Lance asked, having no idea what the word meant.

"I'm not telling," Pidge said.

"You're not telling me what that word means, or you're not telling me what your project is."

"Both," Pidge said.

"Well Hunk and I are going to go have fun and get girlfriends," Lance said. "You are welcome to join us if you want."

"I'm good," Pidge said.

"Feel free to change your mind," Lance said, grabbing a jar of moisturizer for his hands. Winter in Arizona really dried out his skin.

He had a nightly routine now. And it really was a routine. It started at the same time each night and it ended with him getting in bed and closing his eyes. It was supposed to help him sleep. A part of him kept telling himself that he should be practicing, that he should be worried about systems failures and switched up controls, but he reminded himself that there was a time to worry about those things and just then wasn't it. He focused instead on his skin care and wondered if he'd get a second look from the girls in town if his skin was as flawless as Gyeongs. He bet Gyeong was surrounded by pretty girls wherever he'd wound up.

* * *

Stumbling upon an abandoned shack with an actual fucking well felt like providence to Keith, and he kept feeling a draw to the caves and canyons in the area. Months went by as he searched, trying to forget the Garrison, and Shiro, and Lance. He was where he was supposed to be. He knew it. He didn't even notice when he turned eighteen, spending his birthday alone in his shack.

The Garrison was located on what was once a much larger military base, and the surrounding desert was still littered with shells and spent munitions and random stuff they'd blown up for target practice. He'd head into Tucson from time to time to sell off scrap metal he found in the desert and to pick up meagre supplies and to raid the library for maps of the area and for information on it's history. Scrap didn't sell for much though, and food was mostly cup of noodles, though trips to the city usually meant he could find some company for the night, and that usually involved dinner. He told himself it was because he was lonely though and not because he was hungry. He told himself it wasn't cheating if Lance would never really be his in this lifetime.

His first big find, after busting though a cave wall, was a tunnel lined with carvings. There was writing in a language he didn't think existed anywhere else on Earth and blue tinted etchings of a lion. It tickled at the back of his memory, like something from a lifetime too far gone.

There was also an array of dots that he couldn't figure out. After that first cave though, he found four more with similar writing and pictures. He was pretty sure the writing was indecipherable, but after carefully copying the dotted arrays and putting them together, he was pretty sure they were star charts as well as planetary positions. Though oddly enough, they were star charts that seemed to match current patterns. If everything was as old as Keith thought it was, then thousands of years of stellar drift meant that the nights sky would have looked a lot different when the caves were carved and sealed up.

It was the memory of one of those old Ancient Aliens episodes on the Mayan Calendar that sparked off the realization that the star charts were supposed to denote a time. Another trip to the library and a lot more math than his class in stellar navigation had left him comfortable with helped him figure out an exact date and time, when the star and planet charts on the cave walls would exactly match the nights sky. It was only a week away.

* * *

Hunk had been really worried about Lance for a while. Somehow though, his breakdown in the galley seemed to have been the best thing for him. It wasn't like Hunk hadn't been affected by it all either. The disaster just put a fine point on how dangerous space travel was, as his family kept redundantly reminding him. It had been a bit of a surprise though when he'd realized that it was Lance who was taking the whole thing a lot harder than he himself had been. He supported Lance wanting to be safe. Hunk wanted to be safe too, but they'd rather decided to go at it from different angles. When he walked into his room and found Lance playing a computer game with a face mask on, he figured that things were actually turning around.

Just when he was starting to relax though, he realized that it was their other roommate he maybe should have been focusing on. Pidge was just, weird. Like, suspiciously weird.

On paper, everything looked above board. The dude was top of the science track, he knew the systems, and he seemed to have no trouble understanding any of the military lingo, but at the same time, he acted like he'd never been through hell week. He'd supposedly been through Combat Marksmanship the year prior but seemed confused by a lot of the rifle terms Lance threw around.

The thing that really got him though was the questions. Pidge was pretty aloof, just like Francis had been, but Pidge kept asking questions about rumors around school about the Heracles. He asked Hunk about the seminars he'd attended on the Heracles systems. Everything was just weird. It didn't help that Pidge stayed out until just before curfew, and then snuck out later in the night.

The most alarming thing was when Pidge would completely miss the fact that someone was calling his name. Much like everything else about him, his name didn't seem to fit him. Classes with him were also weird, because the guy would always phone it in. It showed that Pidge was the smartest in the science track, but he didn't really seem to care about any of it. Hunk might not have wanted to go to space, but he still loved it. He loved the science behind it, and the engineering that was going to take mankind to the stars, but Pidge almost seemed to sneer at the very idea of it, and Hunk just didn't know what Pidge got from being at the Garrison. Between that and the fact that he looked like a middle schooler, he very much just didn't seem to belong at the Garrison.

People had accused Hunk of being nosy before, but in this case, he was pretty sure it was justified. Pidge kept vaguely alluding to projects he was working on, but Hunk had never actually seen him work on them, and he always carried a bulging backpack whenever he disappeared.

Hunk asked around, but no one in the science track seemed to know anything more about him. The guy was a mystery, and Hunk liked mysteries, but generally he liked mysteries that involved figuring out what had gone wrong with a system. This mystery seemed like the sort of thing that belonged in a novel. Either way, Pidge had earned Hunk's suspicion and he was going to keep digging.

* * *

It wasn't like he just suddenly got better, but after a few weeks his grades had improved and he'd stopped sliding back in the rankings and he had to admit that Dr. Lively had probably known what she was talking about. By the end of the quarter Lance felt like he was in a good place. Spring break wasn't as fun without Veronica, in part because he had to stay at the Garrison and follow their curfew. Lance spent a lot of time at the community pool in town and when a high school girl named Tina asked him if he could teach her the dolphin stroke Lance was very grateful that Hunk decided to make himself scarce.

Tina didn't even last until the end of spring break, but dating her for a few days had been fun. Lance wasn't even shocked that it hadn't lasted. He knew he wasn't exactly boyfriend material. When he started Saturday movie nights the first weekend of Spring quarter, the first movie he picked was a romcom, since he figured he could probably use a few pointers. Pidge didn't join them.

Lance found that he didn't have to worry about rejoining the swim team. The coach was eager to have him. It was still just an excuse to get in the water, and it was a little nice to have people be impressed with his times. It still wasn't like the team was going anywhere.

Lance had given up a while ago on getting the same dynamic with the fighter pilots that he'd had with the support pilots. He found eventually that it was just better to just keep up with his friends from Support. There was still a toxic air of competition in flight ops, but Lance was just focusing on his own performance, or rather on his teams'. Pidge still didn't really mesh well with them, even though he was probably the best science officer in their year.

Pidge didn't really usually engage with Lance, but with a bit of prodding Lance figured out some of his interests, and when he told Pidge that their next movie was going to be a cyberpunk thriller from the fifties he actually got the whole team together outside of a class activity. That first time watching Epsilon and the Weight of Tomorrow, a horribly schlocky movie, Pidge had actually looked misty eyed by the end, which made zero sense. Pidge didn't suddenly become sociable, and Lance hadn't been expecting him to be, nor did he just restrict movie night to cyberpunk flicks (he still needed to learn more about romance), but he seemed a bit more relaxed around them. It was only when Pidge started to relax a bit around him that Lance realized that the other boy had always been a bit on edge all the time. It had been too long since he'd been focused on being a good team lead.

It helped when Veronica landed back on Earth and Lance got to video chat with her for the first time in over six months. She was a bit exhausted from a high op tempo, but she was thrilled with her first mission and she swore to tell him all about it when her post mission operations were done and she was shipped back to the Garrison. Before the end of the call Mamá and Papá had joined into the call and Lance was really glad to see the relief on their faces. Hopefully they'd get used to things before Lance's first mission off planet.

Lance started rising again in the ranks as the quarter progressed, and he rather thought it was a combination of not just his own hard work and new self care routine, but also he did feel that their team dynamic had improved in the simulator. When he started worrying less about his team, he could focus more on his flying, and somewhere along the line flying had become fun again. That, more than anything, was when he really started to improve. It was sort of like the rifle with Tío Mateo, or swimming laps, or combat marksmanship when they'd gotten really into team operations the year prior. There got to be a point where he'd sit in the cockpit and everything would just click. Hunk told him he was in the zone.

One person who never seemed to be impressed was Commander Iverson. The guy was in charge of the training and research branches at the garrison but as a former fighter pilot he stalked the simulator and loved to give his two cents whenever cadets rotated out. He liked to yell a lot too. Pidge seemed to hate the guy, and Lance had had to manage a couple of careful distractions to keep the guy from paying attention to some rather blatant disrespect.

Veronica eventually came back to America and Lance got to give her the biggest hug when her maglev pulled into the station. It was going to be a couple of weeks of filling out post mission reports and other paperwork for her and then she'd be joining him for his two weeks of Summer Vacation in Varadero. On the way back to base she told him about exploring Titan, and about Mars Station. He extracted a promise from her to join his next movie night and figured he'd need to find another cyberpunk movie if he was going to get Pidge to join in. There had to be some other genre he was into. Lance would have to do some sleuthing.

Summer vacation was great. The twins were getting so big, he was pretty bummed to have missed their tenth birthday, but he made up for it by taking them to a summer fair in Havana. Lance wore a Galaxy Garrison shirt and introduced himself as a cadet to as many girls as he could manage. Rolando made gagging noises every time Lance tried to charm a girl so it was no wonder none of them gave him the time of day. Rolando would figure it out soon enough. Lance was a bit worried that Camila already had since she paid a bit too much attention to an older boy who had sat next to her on the tilt a whirl.

Veronica was still readjusting to Earth's gravity and had a bit of a workout routine she had to follow so Lance worked out with her to keep her company. Of course he spent as much time as he could on the beach when he wasn't getting roped into helping out at the hotel. Luis had graduated with his degree in business administration and was trying to reorganize the whole hotel. Papá wanted to send him out to get his MBA and Lance wondered if he just wanted a reprieve.

It was a good vacation, the sort that left you melancholy when it was over. Veronica was chewing up her leave after six months in space and stayed an additional week while Lance went back for Summer quarter. He'd missed the simulator though.

* * *

The flight back to Germany had been the longest five hours of Katie's life. Another airport bathroom change saw her back into a dress she'd picked out in town, and as soon as she was through the gate she flung herself into her mother's arms.

"Oh Katie, I've missed you."

Pidge had missed Katie also. She told Mom all about the sensor project she was working on during the ride to base, minus the more interesting tidbits. She talked about trips to the beach, and a whale watching trip and all sorts of activities she'd been able to photoshop herself into. Mom told her about her own projects, and about life in Germany. There was a new restaurant in town she wanted to take her to that night. They'd only been home for about a half an hour before mom brought up Kerberos.

"I wished I could have been with you when the Heracles report came out," Mom said. "I'm sure that was hard for you."

Katie had to stop herself from saying anything, because she wanted to scream that it was a hoax, a sham, it was nothing but lies. She was still figuring things out though. She wasn't ready to pull the wool away from everyone's eyes. She'd never been angrier in her life, though, than when she'd read that report.

'Fuel Oxidizer stress had been planned for…'

'A routine check would have identified this malfunction…'

'All crew members had assigned checks to be performed before any takeoff procedure…'

'We have concluded from the relevant data that this accident was preventable, and there were appropriate preventative procedures in place that appear to have been ignored by the assigned crew member…'

'The Heracles disaster was caused by negligence on the part of the pilot…'

They were all lies, and what they'd done to Shiro wasn't even the worst part of the coverup.

She'd been quiet for too long.

"Oh sweetie," Mom said, grabbing her in a hug. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have brought it up."

Mom had been so happy when she picked her up at the airport. She'd been happier than Pidge had seen her since the launch. She put on a smile.

"I'm okay," she said. "Really. Come on. Let's go into town. You need to show me around."

It was a really good two weeks. She could almost forget that she was supposed to be Pidge.

* * *

First Monday in and classes took off like they'd never left. Lance was in for a bit of a surprise during his first day of Combat Marksmanship of the quarter. There he was, three quarters into learning how to be a sneaky assed sniper, plopped down in his hide with his rifle pointed downrange when Chief Petty Officer Barnard plopped down next to him and nearly gave him a heart attack.

"Relax cadet, you'll need a bit more training before you'll be able to see me coming," he said.

"Chief, this is my hide, how'd you do that?" Lance asked.

"Come back with gold and maybe I'll tell you, Cadet."

"Gold, Chief?"

"Pack your bags Cadet, you ship out to Fort Benning Thursday night."

"Fort Benning?"

"American Army base in Georgia," Chief said. "East coast. They're hosting the International Military Sports Council this year for the World Marksmanship Championship. You and Cadet Rice from third year are going to represent our school here in the cadet brackets. You're competing in the quarter mile scope, and the rifle close quarters movement events. Also, do I remember you mentioning you grew up on iron sights?"

"Yes Chief, my Tío taught me."

"Good, I'll sign you up for the three hundred meter iron sights event as well.

"That sounds amazing Chief, I'll definitely bring back gold. What about classes though."

"Your grades are good," Chief said. "You're only missing Friday and Monday and you've already been excused. Each of the Galaxy Garrison schools are sending cadets, and you're going to be reporting to Petty Officer Song from the Asia Division when you arrive. You'll be under Cadet Rice for the duration and I expect you two to stick together while you're traveling."

"Yes, Chief. I won't let you down."

"Do us proud Cadet, now how about you tell me what you've got in your sight downrange."

* * *

Lance woke up in a cold sweat and took a moment to realize that he wasn't on the Heracles. A few deep breaths later and he looked around. Barracks bays were never properly dark at night. The eight other male Galaxy Garrison cadets that had been assembled for the event were spread out in the bay. They were sharing with cadets from West Point and some school from South Africa whose name Lance couldn't remember.

Lance checked his watch and considered calling the hotel front desk to see who was working the graveyard shift. It would probably just be an employee though. Realistically, nobody was going to be up. Mamá would still pick up if he called though. He picked up his phone but instead of calling anyone he just plugged in his headphones and tried to drown out the silence. He blamed the nightmare on having skipped his nightly routine and brought up his hands to his face like he was massaging in the ointment.

The following morning Petty Officer Song got them up early for a light PT and breakfast. Along with the girls from the next bay over, there were twelve of them representing the Galaxy Garrison and Lance was looking forward to actually getting to know the students from the other branches. Lance got to observe the first couple of events before he and three of the other cadets got called for the quarter mile scope event. There were over forty cadets in the event and Summertime in Georgia provided the perfect climate for a challenging sniper shot. Lance placed fourth. Sort of like his first time in the simulator he'd sort of let his dreams of gold become his expectation, but he knew that fourth wasn't bad. He wouldn't be competing in his next event till the following day so Lance stuck to Cadet Rice until he went off for the twenty-five meter pistol event. Lance had never even held a pistol.

That night, Lance followed his nightly routine, even though he got a few stares from the other guys. He slept like a baby.

The following day he competed in the close quarters movement event which was a timed event that included a course he was supposed to make his way through and a number of popup targets, some of which he wasn't supposed to shoot. There were only twenty cadets competing and Lance was ecstatic to place second. Then of course he stuck around and watched the enlisted bracket for the same event and realized that he was still outclassed by the much more experienced riflemen. A couple hours later, Cadet Rice came by and ran the same course with a pistol coming in fifth out of the thirty-two cadets.

The following day was Lance's last event on iron sights. There were almost two hundred cadets competing and Lance placed tenth, which was disappointing. That night there was a mixer and Lance got to mingle with cadets from all over the world while Petty Officer Song got to go to a similar mixer for the enlisted. When Lance got back on Monday he was feeling pretty good about himself. He hadn't brought home gold, but realistically he'd known that no one had expected him to. The Galaxy Garrison was a military organization but ground force combat arms was practically an afterthought for the organization. Chief was happy with the silver medal Lance brought back.

Lance had missed a day in the simulator which of course meant pulling out the mockpit and convincing Pidge to join him and Hunk to go over the scenario he'd missed. Pidge had been starting to grow on him. As surly as the other boy was, he had an impish sense of humor that had taken a bit for Lance to get used to and Lance decided that this was going to be the quarter that they became a proper team. What they really needed was an adventure.

"Sneak out with me tonight," Lance said.

"Why would I do that?" Pidge asked.

"Seconded," Hunk said.

"You sneak out all the time," Lance accused Pidge. He knew he could turn Hunk around with a bit of time.

"I don't leave the Garrison," Pidge said.

"And where exactly do you go?" Hunk asked. Hunk had never liked not knowing.

"To work on my project in peace," Pidge said.

"Come on," Lance said. "The Dungeon's going to be half empty on a Thursday, we can have most of the games to ourselves."

Here he saw Pidge's eyes widen for just a moment and he realized he'd actually hit on something. Of course a moment later it was gone and Pidge turned back to his computer.

"Have fun you two," Pidge said.

"I never said I was going," Hunk said.

Lance narrowed his eyes at Pidge and decided to scope out the games at the Dungeon. If he could figure out which one Pidge probably liked he could lure the other boy into their adventure.

That night he and Hunk snuck out and in spite of Hunk's predictions of doom and gloom it was a roaring success. None of the games really stuck out to him as something Pidge would like though. He'd figure something out for the following Thursday.

* * *

Iverson was careful with everything. Whatever sensor data they had gotten from the Osiris had been scrubbed from the system and wasn't on any computer Pidge had access to. He was also careful with his emails. It took Pidge a while to refine her scrubbers but by the end of her first month at the Garrison, she'd managed to find something that was actually relevant. He received some rather vague but regular emails, from about a month before the Heracles had landed on Kerberos to the present.

'Three incidents this week. All processed. No contamination.'

That was a typical email. Iverson never responded. It only took a bit of digging to find that the sender, Jamal Hussein, was a man who worked for SETI. Hacking his email took a bit, but after a while she got access, and from there she was able to bypass the anti-virus on his email server and send him a trojan from his own account. SETI did a lot, but one of the things they were famous for was looking for Extra Terrestrial activity in radio waves. Hussein, it seemed, worked directly with that program. He also sent the emails from his personal computer which had absolutely no crossover with his work computer. It took her another month to get access to the SETI network and she started analyzing data packets.

It took her a week to find the little bot in the network that was also scrubbing data packets before they could get into the database. It captured some, deleting them from the traffic and sending them to a SETI IP address every time. Pidge was able to follow the traffic and inserted another trojan into the pipeline. Then she had access to all of the packets that had been sent from the beginning. Pidge's heart started hammering in her chest when she opened the first intercept. Reading it though, it was mostly gibberish.

SETI still relied on the same old dish network it had been using for almost a century. The fact of the matter was that there were more advanced networks doing the same thing for the Garrison, and those probably were able to clearly receive the transmissions. The reason SETI was flagging the packets wasn't because there was anything interesting in them that they could detect, more likely it was for where they were coming from. The time stamp and location data was the only thing in the packets that was readable. Pidge extracted all of the time stamps and triangulation data and processed it in a spatial viewer.

The first thing that was wrong, was that almost all of them were coming from inside the Earth. Which made zero sense. There were only two packets that were outside of Earth and both of those were from Kerberos. Checking the timestamp, her breath caught seeing that they were captured just before and not long after the Heracles landed. Pidge analyzed them to determine if there was any similarity to the others. She still couldn't wrap her head around transmissions coming from inside the earth.

They were all the same gibberish. But two of the packets that centered inside the Earth were identical to the two packets from Kerberos, and the same amount of time apart. Pidge checked the time differences between the Kerberos transmissions and realized that it was about the amount of time she'd expect for a radio transmission to reach Earth from Kerberos. So right before the Heracles landed a transmission was made from inside the Earth, at the same time the exact same transmission was made from near Kerberos. About a day later the process was repeated. A new transmission from inside the Earth and an identical transmission from Kerberos.

Pidge opened up one of the Earth packets and examined the raw triangulation data. Frowning, she mapped the Earth stations that had picked up the transmission and the individual timestamps that each one had received it. This didn't make any sense either, since everything was too close together time-wise. As in, the transmission was traveling through space, hitting one receiver and then the next faster than it would have taken the speed of light to go from one to the other. The transmissions weren't coming from Earth, the computer wasn't actually triangulating the data, it was giving a best estimate with the information it had, zeroing out to somewhere around the middle of the Earth.

None of that made sense though. There was no way the signal could have been traveling faster than light. She shook her head. Matt would tell her that you never started a problem by stating what was impossible. She looked at the Kerberos packets again. What if there weren't four transmissions, but two, and each transmission traveled at two speeds. The speed of light, which the receivers picked up and properly triangulated and another that confused the computer and had it shooting out that best guess.

But then why had all of the other transmissions only had the one copy coming from within the Earth, and nothing from space so many hours prior. Assuming that all of the transmissions that showed as originating from within the Earth originated from somewhere else, and that the problem was that the transmission was traveling at a speed faster than light, and assuming that that speed was constant for each transmission, Pidge could extrapolate and figure out what that speed was and retriangulate. So working off of the idea that the transmission from Kerberos and the transmission that had been picked up hours later were actually transmitted at the same exact time, Pidge crunched the numbers and got a really really big number. Like this was data that was traveling at several hundred thousand times the speed of light.

"Matt, I know what you're going to say, but that's impossible."

The mapping program she was using with the triangulation data didn't have a variable setting for the speed of light, so Pidge had to make some adjustments. Eventually though, she got it working and it mapped out everything properly.

The first transmission, from about a month before the Heracles landed, was from around Alpha Centauri, the next one was Proxima Centauri, both stars particularly close to Earth. If Pidge was wrong about the speed of the transmissions, and she'd just told the computer to retriangulate the transmissions on a completely bonkers parameter, the odds of the first two transmissions coming from actual solar systems and not random corners of space was astronomically small. Pidge watched a time progression of the transmissions as they hopped around from solar system to solar system in their own little corner of the galaxy. It took Pidge a moment to realize it was a search pattern.

That didn't make any sense though. Those stars were lightyears apart from one another and from Earth. The only way for someone to travel that quickly from star to star would be to have the technology to not only send data at a speed faster than light, but also to travel as well.

"Oh my god," Pidge said. Someone was traveling faster than the speed of light.

"Oh My God," Pidge said again. That was technology way more advanced than anything on Earth.

"OH MY GOD," Pidge yelled and clamped her hands over her mouth.

"Motherfucking Aliens," Pidge whispered to herself from her hideout on the roof of the dormitory. Her heart stuttered. Aliens had blown up the Heracles? Why? It didn't make any sense. Go explore the galaxy, destroy the first space ship you come across, and then, she checked the log, move on to the next solar system?

The thing was though, that they were looking for something. Or at least they were doing some sort of search grid. So it really wouldn't make sense to just kill anyone you came across.

"They could be alive," Pidge realized. After months of searching for answers, this just brought up so many more questions.

More than that, she felt an anger stronger than she had known was possible. Anger at the officers who had let this happen. They'd been intercepting these communications since well before the Heracles had reached Kerberos. Pidge watched the progression of transmissions play over and over again, watching as each time they arrived at Kerberos. The Garrison wouldn't have had the transmission from Kerberos at the time to compare to, but anyone who looked at the raw data would have eventually come to the same conclusion that Pidge had. They had enough reference points to figure out the speed. They would have seen the same search pattern, they would have seen that the aliens were coming to earth. They could have warned them, they could have diverted the mission. The Kerberos mission, every mission out past Mars in fact, should have been scrubbed the instant they realized there were mother fucking aliens searching the area. It was beyond negligence to send her brother, her father, and Shiro out alone to the far reaches of their solar system knowing that that kind of threat was present. They'd been like lambs led to the slaughter. No, lambs sacrificed on the alter of secrecy that the Garrison had presented an illusion of 'business as usual' to uphold. She wanted to march up to Iverson and demand answers, to hold him accountable for his silence. She couldn't though. She still wasn't ready.

She spent the following day in a bit of a daze as she processed everything.

"Hey dude, you okay?" Lance asked.

As much as hyper-fixated-Lance had been an annoyance, zen-Lance was even worse, particularly since he had begun to pay way too much attention to her.

"I'm fine," Pidge said.

"You've been working pretty hard lately. Do you want to play Dragon Wrangler when we get done with classes?"

"Nope," Pidge said.

"Seriously, you've got to take time for self care," Lance said.

"Science is self care," Pidge said.

"You're sure everything's okay?" Lance asked.

"I'm doing fine," Pidge said. "Really."

She just had to wrap her mind around the idea of aliens having abducted her family.

A lot of Garrison systems were sandboxed, meaning there was no physical way for data to travel outside of the system. Pidge was sure that the Galaxy Garrisons much more advanced sensors had probably gotten better readings on those transmissions, but wherever they were, she didn't have access. In the end, she decided the best bet was to make her own sensors. The SETI data was enough to calibrate them properly and before she knew it she had her own packets to play with. Then she just had to figure out how to process them.

Lance continued to try to get her to have fun, or open up or whatever. The thing was, that he was actually a good listener, and sometimes he got her talking about classes and the next thing she knew she was talking about science projects she'd worked on years ago, Lance nodding along like it all made sense to him. She'd missed having someone she could really talk to like that, outside of her near daily quick updates with her mom. Lance felt familiar sometimes and one day while she was talking about her fusion reactor she almost brought up Matt, which was off limits, and then she realized that somehow the great buffoon reminded her of Matt and that was not right. He was nothing like Matt. No one was like Matt. Matt didn't need replacing, because he was still out there. He was still out there, and Pidge was going to get him back.

* * *

"What did you take your harness off for?" Lance asked Pidge, watching anxiously as he clutched at his head as they walked out of the simulator.

"You wouldn't shut off the alarm," Pidge said. "And I couldn't reach. Why couldn't you just fly in a straight line?"

"The Hydraulic Stabilizer cut out," Lance protested.

"Because you decided to do a shimmy," Hunk said. "You know flight throws up technical issues when you fool around."

Lance shrugged. "It's free sim. And I would like to put forth that any ship that has Hunk Garret for an engineer can handle a little shimmy. How's your head?"

"It's fine, Lance," Pidge said, brushing him off.

"And just what in the twisted recesses of space did you cadets think you were doing?"

Lance had not known that Commander Iverson would be watching.

"Sir," Lance said. "Just trying to push the limits of our training Sir."

"Who can tell me what these cadets did wrong?" Commander Iverson asked the assembled cadets waiting their turn.

"The engineer vomited in the main hydraulics compartment," Cadet Blevins pointed out.

"The science officer removed his safety harness," Cadet Lang said.

"The pilot put unnecessary stress on his vessel in order to show off," Cadet Freeman said.

"All correct," Commander Iverson. "Piss poor teamwork too. Now I've seen first years in their first week of crew operations make worse mistakes but not by much. It is exactly these lax attitudes and carelessness that got the crew of the Heracles killed."

"That's not true," Pidge said mutinously. Lance slapped a hand over his mouth.

"What was that cadet?"

"Minor head injury," Lance said pointing to the small bruise forming at Pidge's temple. "I was just going to get him to med bay."

"See that you do, and make sure he doesn't make any other phenomenal blunders on his way. I suppose that leaves Kilisi to clean the hydraulics compartment. This sim is closed for the time being cadets. Get in line on sims three and four."

Lance shot Hunk an apologetic look as he guided Pidge down the hall, relieved that he didn't have to help clean up.

"You've got to watch yourself with Iverson," Lance said. "He's not the guy you want looking at you too closely." He wasn't sure what special project Pidge had tucked away somewhere, but he was pretty sure he didn't want the higher ups looking at it anymore than he wanted Lance to.

"He takes every chance to talk trash about the Heracles crew," Pidge said, sounding almost on the verge of tears. "I'm sick of his bullshit."

"Look, I know it's bullshit," Lance said, which got a surprised look from Pidge. "But you're not going to change anything mouthing off like that. You want to talk to me about the bullshit, I'll listen, but that's got to stay between us, okay?"

"You know he isn't just in charge of the training program," Pidge said. "He's also in charge of the research team that designed half of brand new parts that were on the Heracles. Which means he was responsible for the investigation."

"Yeah," Lance said. "And I also figured out that it probably wasn't a coincidence that he took over from Commander Simmons right after the Kerberos disaster."

"Bingo," Pidge said. "You tore down your poster of the Heracles the week I got here."

"Yeah," Lance said. "That was stupid."

"Then you put a new one back up."

"Look, I don't really know what happened," Lance said. "I think the point is that no one really does. But they were all amazing people and they all signed up to shoot off to the edge of the solar system in an experimental spacecraft and that's… " He tried not to think about the Heracles most of the time, but he'd been serious when he'd told Pidge that he was there to talk if he needed it. That's what a team leader was for. "That's the future of humanity right there. We need heroes like that and then that report just uses a bunch of supposition to make out like it was all their fault when who knows what really caused it to crash."

Pidge nodded. "They are heroes," he said. There were actual tears in his eyes. "But I don't think it was supposition. It was a god damned coverup."

"Covering what up?" Lance asked.

"All sorts of things," Pidge hedged, and here the other boy shut down.

Lance figured this wasn't a hallway conversation.

"You need some time off," Lance said. "Sneak out with us tonight."

"Oh my god," Pidge said, exasperated.

"Iverson practically just ordered us to work on teamwork. He's got no one to blame but himself if we sneak out tonight as a team."

"I've got my project," Pidge said. "Things are heating up."

"Things?" Lance prodded.

Pidge shook his head.

"You know they've got Mecha Strike Three at the dungeon," Lance said, a shot in the dark.

Pidge snorted. "Try again," he said. "Later, try again later."

That night would be later.

* * *

A/N: An alternative title for next chapter is Lance saves the world but that probably won't get him a girlfriend. Hope you liked it. Part one is almost over. Let me know what you think.


	4. Taking Off

A/N: The last chapter but not the end of the story. Enjoy

Taking Off

* * *

It had taken Pidge a while to work out the packets she periodically picked up on her scanner. It was an alien communique, or something, which meant it was meant to be received by an alien computer that operated completely differently than anything on Earth. Pidge had to use the transmissions as a sort of guide for how such a computer would work, and how she would go about reading it on her own.

As it turned out, they were all audio files. When she finally figure out how to properly process it and convert it for human tech, she opened it for the first time alone on the roof. Of course it was in an alien language. By the time she'd figured it out, she'd amassed a small cache of broadcasts so she started listening to all of them listening for any sorts of clues. A part of her hoped that she'd hear a familiar voice or two.

Pidge definitely wasn't a linguist, but she listened to the transmissions over and over again, trying to pick out any sort of anomaly. There was only one thing that stood out. The language that was spoken in the transmission had a sort of harsh guttural intonation to it, and Pidge sort of thought she had an idea of the common sounds, but there was one word that kept popping up in all of the broadcasts that was different from the others.

"Voltron" she sounded the word out to herself.

It was sort of like listening to someone talk in a foreign language and then all of a sudden drop in an English word. It stood out. What had also stood out was the fact that the transmissions were coming back around. It was like they were retracing their steps, and if Katie had any sort of guess, she'd say they were going to be back in Earth's solar system sometime that night. Of course they'd probably pass through, but she was desperate with the hope that they would try to make contact with the Earth. That they had Matt and Dad and Shiro on board and that they could get them back.

"So anyway," Mom said. "Ellain came over and she taught me how to make strudel, so you'd better come with your sweet tooth for Christmas."

"Oh definitely," Pidge said, having no way to just come out and say that Matt and Dad could very well be returning to their solar system at that very moment.

"Are you okay, sweetie?" Mom asked. "You've seemed distracted tonight."

"I'm fine," Pidge said. "Just a history project I've got due tomorrow."

"Is it all done?" Mom asked.

"Almost," Pidge said. "Maybe." Maybe it would all be over soon.

"Should I let you go?" Mom asked. "It's getting late there, I don't want you staying up too late finishing your project."

"It's okay Mom," Pidge said. "I could use the company right now. Tell me more about this strudel."

Suddenly the door to the roof opened up and Katie's heart stuttered.

"Actually, just remembered I've got a lot to do, bye."

"Love you sweet-"

Pidge shoved her phone in her pocket and closed her laptop, searching around for Matt's glasses and shoving them back on her face.

"Oh, so this is where you've been hiding?" It was Lance's voice. Thank god it was only Lance. At the very least he was out after curfew too.

"Is that a Petruvian Sensor?" Hunk asked. Hunk was there too, and he was way to nosy.

"So this is all the tech you keep in that backpack of yours," Lance said.

"You build this yourself?" Hunk asked, sounding impressed.

"Yeah," Pidge said. "What are you guys doing here?"

"Lieutenant Dent and Ensign Nigma were blocking up the exit we normally sneak out of. I mean they were just standing there talking. We kept waiting to sneak out and they just kept on gabbing," Lance said. "I thought we could climb down from the roof. Hey, you should join us. You know they've got Mordor Unraveled at the Dungeon right? There's a pretty good dungeon crawl in there."

"You guys go on," Pidge said. "Tonight is really not the night."

"Are you okay?" Lance asked. "You look tense or something."

"I'm not," Pidge said.

"Are you still upset about what we were talking about in the hallway earlier?"

"What were you talking about in the hallway?" Hunk asked.

"Nothing," Pidge said.

"Does nothing have something to do with Voltron?" Hunk asked. He was holding her notebook.

"Give me that," she said snatching it out of his hands.

"Have you been listening to chatter from one of our probes?" Hunk asked, poking at her sensor array.

"Is the Garrison up to something shady?" Lance asked.

"Super shady," Pidge said.

"Wait, for real?" Hunk asked.

"Is this about Kerberos?" Lance asked. "Do you really have evidence of a cover up?"

"What's it to you?" Pidge asked.

Lance shrugged. "Shiro was my hero. Then they blamed everything on him and I… I don't know, I care, okay."

Suddenly her computer beeped and she turned around to find that Hunk had opened it.

"Hey," she said. But what was more important was that she'd collected a new packet. Heart pounding in her chest she unlocked her screen and took a look.

"What's that?" Lance asked.

"An alien ship in our solar system," Pidge said, letting the new packet go through her processing program.

"Aliens?" Lance asked. "Yeah right."

"They just came from Epsilon Indi two days ago," Pidge said.

"Uh huh," Lance said.

Pidge pressed play and yanked her headphones out. The alien voice played out and Pidge hoped with everything she had that this one would be different. She didn't hear Matt or Dad, but this one was different. There was an excited quality to the voice this time, and the word Voltron was said three times.

"Did you say 'Voltron,' Hunk?" Lance asked.

"That's what it said in the journal," Hunk said.

"What was that?" Lance asked.

"That was an alien language," Pidge said. "The Garrison's been tracking them for a while. They were right there at Kerberos when we lost contact with the Heracles."

"Are you being serious right now?" Lance asked.

"Uh, guys," Hunk said, a lot of worry in his voice. "What the hell is that?!"

There was a burning streak in the sky that got closer and closer.

"That might just be an alien spaceship," Pidge said, tension building inside of her.

Whatever it was, it crashed about a half kilometer away.

"Holy crow," Lance shouted.

They waited tensely for something to happen. Suddenly Iverson's voice popped up from loudspeakers around the compound.

"This is not a drill, all Cadets are to stay in barracks, no exceptions."

"What the hell is going on you guys?" Hunk asked.

Two Garrison vehicles started tearing across the ground towards the crash site.

"Come on," Lance said. "We've got to get closer."

Pidge was already packing up her equipment. That could be Matt and Dad. They climbed down the fire escape on the side of the building and started running, keeping away from the street lights. When they got to the closest building to the crash site they climbed on top to get a better view. There were a couple more vehicles and it looked like they'd been busy.

The first thing they'd done was set up a perimeter around the crater and a command tent was quickly erected next to it.

"They're pulling someone out of it?" Hunk said. Pidge looked over to see that Hunk had found her binoculars.

"Let me see that," Lance said.

Pidge ignored them and pulled out her laptop and started scanning the Garrison network.

"The command tent has a security system. They've already set up a camera," Pidge said.

"What?" Hunk asked

The two boys crowded around her. On the screen they could see a person on a gurney surrounded by people in hazmat suits.

"How'd you hack that so fast?" Hunk asked.

Whoever was on the gurney was struggling against them.

"I've been in their system for a while," Pidge said.

"We're not about to watch an alien autopsy, are we?" Lance asked.

"Is there audio?" Hunk asked.

Pidge selected the audio stream and turned it on. Let it be them, she dared to dream, anticipating Matt's or Dad's voice coming in on the line.

"You have to listen to me." That was Shiro's voice!

"Who's that?" Lance asked.

Suddenly, someone else walked into the tent. Their back was to the camera, but Pidge recognized Iverson. The people in the hazmat suits backed away from the gurney to give him a view, and that's when she saw who they had pulled out of the spaceship.

"Maldito infierno!" Lance said. "That's Shiro!"

It really was Shiro. And if Shiro was back…

"Sir! They're coming to Earth. They're aliens. They've destroyed worlds!"

"Calm down son," Iverson said. "You're hysterical."

"Sir, he's got some sort of cyborg prosthetic," One of the hazmat guys said.

"Sedate him," Iverson said. "We don't know what that thing can do."

"What are they doing?" Lance asked.

"No, don't, they're coming. They're looking for a weapon. We have to find it. We have to find Voltron before they do."

"What the hell are they doing to him," Lance said angrily. "That guy's a hero!"

"Where's the rest of the crew?" Pidge asked. "Where are they?"

"This is a god damn coverup," Lance said.

They watched, as on the screen, Shiro was held down and a syringe was stuck into his neck.

"We've got to do something," Lance said.

"So there really are aliens?" Hunk asked.

"They destroy worlds," Lance whispered. He cleared his throat. "Iverson's trying to cover it up. Come on, we need a distraction."

They all got up, to do what, Pidge wasn't sure. There were so many systems she had access to, she could probably spoof their radars and make them think that something else had just landed on the other side of the Garrison. They ducked back down again when explosions went off out in the distance.

"Oh no, what's happening now?" Hunk asked.

Several of the guards outside got in a couple of vehicles and drove off to investigate.

That was when someone stalked out of the shadows. Lance grabbed the binoculars.

"Oh my god, it's Gyeong," he said.

The guy Lance had replaced? Shiro's foster brother?

"Are you sure?" Hunk asked.

"I'd recognize that mullet anywhere," Lance said. "Come on. No way is he rescuing Shiro."

* * *

Something was coming, something was going to happen, and he had to be ready for it. On the night ordained by the stars, he waited by the caves. A streak of light in the sky and an impact in the distance, told him he was a bit off. He got on his bike and hoped that he found whatever it was before the Garrison did.

The Garrison got there first. Keith saw an impact site with some sort of landing pod that didn't look like anything made on Earth. The Garrison had already set up a command tent at the perimeter of the small crater and Keith figured whatever he was looking for was probably inside. He needed a distraction, and he figured it was time to use the C4 that had come with his bike.

Minutes later, he was lurking in the shadows, waiting for the explosion to go off. When it finally came, even Keith was surprised, if only for how big it was. The guards went to go investigate, and Keith went into the command tent. He recognized Iverson's voice and was actually excited to get another chance to deck him. He didn't even hesitate when he saw the eyepatch that covered the eye he'd punched the first time. Moments later, and he'd knocked out everyone inside. That was when he got a look at what had come out of the pod.

"Shiro!" Keith exclaimed, rushing over. He was unconscious and strapped to a gurney. There was a wide jagged scar across his face and he was wearing a tattered tunic, and fuck, what had happened to his arm?

Keith started undoing the straps. He had to get them out of there before the guards came back. A rustling at the tents entrance let him know he'd been too slow.

"Holy crow! It really is Shiro," Lance's voice exclaimed. Keith's head shot up incredulously, and a part of him burned to see Lance again.

His damned soulmate, because of course he was there. Of course the universe would thrust them together again, but why the hell did it have to be now? Whatever was happening was dangerous and Lance wasn't prepared for it in the least.

"Oh no, you're not rescuing Shiro, I'm rescuing Shiro," Lance said. He popped up on the other side of the gurney and started propping Shiro up.

"This isn't the time for a pissing contest, cargo pilot," Keith bit out.

"It's fighter pilot now," Lance said. "Thanks to you dropping out." Why did he sound bitter about it?

"Uh, guys, we really need to get out of here." Hunk's voice called from outside the tent. Keith propped up Shiro's other side and started walking him to the exit. Lance at least, in spite of his words, worked with Kieth to carry Shiro out. Hunk let out a sigh of relief when they walked out. "Oh, hey, it was Keith, good eye Lance. He recognized you from your haircut." He didn't want Lance to recognize him by his haircut, he wanted him to recognize the soul behind his eyes.

"Is Shiro okay?" There was a third cadet behind Hunk.

"He's fine. My bike's over this way," Keith said. Why the hell did he look exactly like a much younger Matt Holt? "Come on."

"Wait," the other cadet said. "Was there anyone else?"

"Just him," Keith said. "Now let's go."

Getting everyone on his bike was a struggle, though evading the Garrison units was a piece of cake. They rode out into the desert and Keith took a circuitous route back to his shack to make sure he didn't draw the Garrison right to them. Lance kept up a constant string of chatter as they streaked across the barren ground.

When they got to his shack, he lay Shiro down on his bed and fretted about, checking him for injuries while the three cadets behind him started nosing around his shack.

"Are these calculations for an astral calendar?" the Matt Holt look-alike asked.

"Ooh, let me see," Hunk said.

"Don't you think we have other things to talk about?" Lance said.

"Yeah," Keith said. "Like what the hell were you thinking back there? Are you just going to head back to the Garrison tomorrow? They've probably got you on camera helping me."

"I took care of the cameras," Matt junior said dismissively.

"Hey," Lance said indignantly. "I was thinking that they were trying to silence Lieutenant Shirogane when he'd just heroically returned to Earth to warn us about an imminent alien invasion. Pretty simple math there, hotshot."

"What are you talking about?" Keith asked.

"Pidge hacked into their security feed," Lance said, gesturing to the third cadet. Pidge Gunderson, Keith remembered from the start of his last term. He looked at the spitting image of mini Matt Holt skeptically. "Shiro was trying to warn them about aliens coming here looking for some weapon here on Earth, and they just sedated him."

Keith sighed realizing that Shiro had just been sedated and wasn't unconscious from some injury from the crash he hadn't been able to find. Keith thought about it for a moment. Whatever was going on was huge, and he knew he needed to tread carefully. Patience yields focus, he reminded himself. He looked up at Lance. Whatever was going on, Lance was here. Fate had thrust them together once more at a time ordained by the stars when an invasion was imminent. Keith supposed they would face whatever was to come together, regardless of the fact that Lance still hated him. But he knew that just because they were soulmates didn't mean that they would grow old and die together. He'd faced invasion before; the last time he'd had to leave Lance's body behind on a doomed planet.

"Well, I guess we'll have to wait until he wakes up to find out more," Keith said.

"So do you want to explain the creepy wall of conspiracies you've got going on here?" Hunk asked, pointing to the wall where Keith had organized everything he'd found in the caves and in his research.

"There's no conspiracy," Keith said. He didn't want to talk about it, about the strange pull, but they were all in this together it seemed. "I felt like there was something out there," he said defensively. "I found those star projections next to those cave drawings and figured out they were counting down to tonight. Wasn't expecting ancient cave drawings to be predicting Shiro's return, but… Look, we'll talk about it when Shiro wakes up, alright? He'll know what's going on. Shiro's got some stuff in that duffel over there. Make sure he knows he has something to change into when he wakes up. I'm going to patrol outside." He fled out into the desert and headed to a good vantage point where he'd see anyone approaching from the Garrison.

* * *

Gyeong stalked out the door, and damnit, he even managed to make that look cool. Gyeong might rather roam the desert night to avoid answering their questions but there was one person who had some explaining to do.

"What the hell were you thinking?" Lance asked rounding on Pidge.

"Woah," Hunk said.

"I think about a lot of things," Pidge said. "Perhaps you could be a bit more specific."

"There've been hostile aliens in our backyard for how long?"

"For as long as I've had my equipment set up, at least," Pidge said. "The Garrison's been tracking them longer, or at least they've been regularly purging something from SETI databases since at least a month before the Heracles landed on Kerberos. Something that's been hopping around our bit of the galaxy and happened to be at Kerberos when the Heracles landed. I'm pretty sure they haven't managed to decode anything though."

"And you didn't think you should let them know you figured out that they were looking for something?"

"The Heracles didn't crash. All of those sensor logs and satellite images were fabricated. I couldn't even find the originals; they're probably sandboxed. This is a massive coverup," Pidge said. "They don't want anyone knowing about the aliens, and they were just going to make me disappear if I said anything."

"Okay," Hunk said. "Just how deep are you into the Garrisons systems?"

"I've got access to everything that isn't sandboxed." Then Pidge shrugged. "Since its honesty hour, let's just say I never actually went through the admissions process, and I'm not really a transfer student."

"Oh snap," Hunk said.

"Oh, nothing," Lance said. "Alien warships are coming to find something on Earth and no one knows about it. You heard Shiro before they knocked him out, these aliens destroy worlds." Lance wondered if there was any possible way he could get to his family. Veronica was at the Garrison. What would she do if he called her up and told her that there was an alien warship inbound?

"We know about it," Pidge said. "Shiro's going to wake up and we're going to figure it out. The garrison was just going to silence him and hope for the best."

"Well, yeah," Hunk said. "Any species advanced enough to travel between stars probably outclasses us significantly technologically. Even our best projections for the hyper relativistic drive suggest that it'll be a year's journey to Proxima Centauri, and you're saying that these people are hopping from star-system to star-system like nothing. There's no contest if they're actually hostile. The only thing they can really do is start a panic." He paused for a moment. "Oh wait, we're all going to die."

Lance ignored the comment. "Or people could prepare," he said.

"Well, that's not really an option," Pidge said. "The Garrison's chosen their track, and no news station is going to listen to us."

"We've got a dead man right there," Lance said.

"You said it yourself," Pidge said. "They destroy worlds. What are people supposed to do? Stock up on water and canned goods?"

"Well we have to do something," Lance said. "They're looking for this weapon, right, probably means it's powerful."

"Shiro knows what's going on," Pidge said. "He'll know what to do."

Lance sighed. Shiro was still passed out. Pidge was right though. About everything, but Lance still felt betrayed somehow by all the secrets.

"Hunk, go through all of this," Lance said gesturing at Gyeong's wall of crazy. "And go through Pidge's journal with him. See if anything clicks."

"Hey," Pidge protested.

"No more secrets," Lance said. "I guess the fate of the world might depend on it."

The shack was small. Only two rooms. So leaving the others to their work, Lance closed himself off in the next room and pulled out his phone. He called his Mamá. It took a while for her to pick up.

"Lanceito? What's wrong. It's really late," Mamá said. Of course she was already worried.

"I'm okay, Mamá. I'm just having a bad day. I got really homesick. I wanted to hear your voice."

"Oh Lance, do you want to tell me about it?"

"Not really," Lance said. "Tell me about what's happening at home."

And so she did. Of course she did. She told him about Luis's new girlfriend, and about the twins' science fair projects, and Tía Elena's new recipe.

"Have you been talking to your therapist?" Mamá asked.

"She closed my case a month ago," Lance said. "I should have told you. Everything's alright though. I just needed to know that everything was alright at home."

"Of course it is," Mamá said. "And everything's alright at the Garrison?"

"Yes, Mamá," Lance said. "Did you see my pictures from Georgia?"

"I did," Mamá said. "We were so proud of you."

"I always try to make you proud, Mamá," Lance said, knowing full well that his Mamá would have rathered he had been in some other competition that hadn't involved guns and war.

"You always do," Mamá said.

"I'll let you go," Lance said. "I'm sorry I've kept you up. Hug everyone for me in the morning. I love you."

"Any time corazoncito," Mamá said.

Lance considered calling Veronica next, but if she figured out something was wrong she'd probably come looking for him. He frowned down at his phone and turned it off. He went back into the other room where Hunk and Pidge gave him a funny look. He realized he had tear tracks down his cheeks.

"Turn off your cell phones," Lance said.

Pidge nodded and pulled out a shiny bag from his backpack. "Faraday cage. Doesn't matter if they're off, cellphones go in here. Either that or I think I saw a hammer over there."

Lance didn't know what a faraday cage was, but he dropped his phone in the bag. Followed by Hunk.

"You guys find anything?" Lance asked.

Pidge and Hunk shared a look.

"It'll go over your head," Hunk said.

"That's fine," Lance said. "As long as you're making progress. Let me know if you need me to wrangle Gyeong back in here. Any sign of life from Shiro?" And Lance still couldn't believe that the man was laying there in the room with them.

"None," Pidge said.

Lance nodded. "Sorry about before," he said, addressing Pidge.

Pidge shrugged. Lance turned back to Shiro. The man was wearing rags and he looked like shit. Of course, shit did nothing to describe the massive scar that ran from cheek to cheek across his nose as if he'd taken a cleaver to the face. The shock of white hair also spoke to the fact that the last year had probably been terrible. Lance didn't really want to consider what looked like a highly advanced mechanical arm. He started looking around the shack and found some bottles of water and a tin of soup. What the hell had Gyeong been living off of? He gathered up what he could, including a wash rag and a bar of soap and put it next to the bed Shiro was laying on.

He listened to Pidge and Hunk talk techno babble for a while, but eventually they both ran out of steam.

"Things are probably going to speed up rapidly tomorrow," Lance said. "Probably best to get some sleep tonight. Gyeong can wake someone up if he wants someone to watch the perimeter."

There wasn't exactly any sort of accommodations besides the small bed Shiro was passed out on, so Lance took a spot on the floor in one of the corners and leaned up against the wall. No nightly routine for him. All of his stuff was at the Garrison, and who knew if he'd ever be back for it. Pidge may have 'taken care of the cameras,' but Lance doubted that anyone was going to miss the fact that three cadets had gone AWOL on the same night Shiro got sprung from right under the Garrison's nose.

The shack did absolutely nothing to keep the morning light out and Lance woke up bright and early. Looking over, he saw Hunk sprawled out on the floor with Pidge leaned up against him. No sign of Keith, and Shiro was… Shiro wasn't awake, but he was moving a bit, twitching and jerking a bit. Lance got up. He was pretty sure that Shiro was dreaming, and if he was dreaming that probably meant he was capable of being woken up. Reaching out a hand he tried to gently shake Shiro's still flesh and blood shoulder.

Lance wasn't even aware of Shiro waking up. One moment he was hovering over the guy, and the next he was sprawled out on the floor, completely winded. Lance looked up to see Shiro standing over him, his arms out in a fighters stance.

"It's okay," Lance said. "You're safe here. For the most part."

"Where am I?"

"Um, about ten miles east of the Garrison," Lance said.

"I have to warn them," Shiro said.

"You tried," Lance said. "They strapped you to a table and knocked you out. Um, we sort of sprung you and brought you here."

"We're in a shack," Shiro said.

"Yeah," Lance said.

"On Earth," Shiro said.

"You are definitely back on Earth," Lance said.

Shiro just stood there for a moment. He looked like he was trying to take stock of everything.

"Look, there's some stuff here for you," Lance said. "Food and water. Soap if you want to wash up, and Gyeong said that that bag had some of your clothes in it."

"Keith?" Shiro asked.

"Yeah," Lance said. "This is sort of his shack."

Shiro looked at him like he was speaking gibberish. "Where is Keith?"

"Keeping a watch outside in case the Garrison managed to follow us," Lance said. "Um, there's a wash basin in the next room."

Shiro took a couple more minutes before he turned and grabbed the bag, the soap, washcloth, and the bottle of water and walked into the next room without another word. Well, that was exactly how Lance had wanted to meet his hero. Rubbing the spot on his chest where Shiro had shoved him, Lance went over to Hunk and Pidge and woke them up. Going back to the pantry the only other thing he found was a second can of soup and a couple of packets of instant ramen. There was one slightly rusty pot that Lance threw the two cans of soup and the noodles into and then poured in a bit more water to make sure the noodles were covered and put it on the old Coleman stove. He seriously couldn't believe that Gyeong had been living there.

When the soup abomination started to boil Shiro walked out of the side room somehow having spent the past fifteen minutes making himself look presentable. The grime was gone, as was the stubble and in his civilian clothes one couldn't exactly tell that he'd just been pulled out of a crashed alien spaceship after having been missing for a year.

"Keith is where exactly?" Shiro asked.

"Probably somewhere he can keep an eye out on anything coming from the Garrison, which is that way," Lance said pointing.

Shiro nodded and walked out the door.

"What the hell?" Pidge asked.

Lance shrugged and stirred the pot. "Breakfast's up," he said. "Or something. This might qualify as food. Eat quick, and wash up if you need to, I think we're going to be moving out as soon as we can."

Realizing that there was only one bowl and one mug, Lance poured a bit into each and handed them out to a silent Pidge and Hunk. A night to sleep on things only seemed to have brought the reality of everything closer to home. He went into the side room so he could at least wash his face. He emptied the wash basin out the window and poured in some fresh water and started scrubbing. Looking into the mirror over the basin he took a moment to give himself a pep-talk.

So he was sort of a fugitive and Aliens were about to attack. It was just another impossible problem in the simulator. He just needed his team, and maybe his team needed him. If the fate of the world depended on three cadets, a washout, and a dead man, then the least they could do was their best.

"How's the feast?" Lance asked in his best customer service voice as he entered the other room. He grabbed a fork and took a few mouthful of noodles from the pot and figured the rest would be for Shiro and Gyeong whenever they decided to walk in.

"Please never cook for me again," Hunk said.

"Seconded," Pidge said.

"Not even Remy the Rat could have made a better meal from what was in this shack," Lance said. "You two ready to brief the Lieutentant?"

"Brief?" Hunk asked.

"It's just like class," Lance said. "You've worked the problem and now it's time to brief the CO."

"We've still got questions for him," Hunk said.

"We'll work it out," Lance said. "Just make sure your PowerPoint is good."

Pidge rolled his eyes, and Lance smiled. They had this. Lance still wasn't sure what 'this' was, but they had it.

* * *

It was a cold night, but he'd been used to those before he'd ever ventured out into the high desert. He watched the horizon for any signs of movement, but most of his time was spent thinking about what they would do next. He wasn't sure what any of them could do about an alien invasion, but he'd have Shiro at his side, and he could do his best to make sure his soulmate survived. With dawn on the horizon, Keith saw a solitary figure leaving his shack. It was Shiro. It was time for them to work out what they were going to do next.

Keith was glad to see that Shiro had changed into some clean clothes and had taken the time to shave. It felt more familiar than the man he had rescued the night before.

"Officially, you're dead," Keith told Shiro, by way of greeting.

"How long was I gone?" Shiro asked.

"They lost contact with you about a year ago?" Keith said. "I told you to watch out for aliens."

"I don't remember much after Kerberos," Shiro said. "A year, huh?"

"Supposedly you said something about an alien invasion last night?" Keith suggested with a bit of trepidation.

Shiro nodded. "They want something," he said hesitantly. "I don't even remember who they are.

Keith frowned. How could he just forget? "We'll figure it out," Keith said. "Come on, I've got some stuff to show you. Might jog your memory or something."

They started walking towards the shack.

"They said this is your shack," Shiro said.

"Uh, yeah," Keith said.

"What happened with the Garrison," Shiro asked.

"Um… I got kicked out?" Keith said with a great deal of trepidation. "Things changed after you disappeared… I changed. Besides, they were treating you like shit, they told everyone you crashed the Heracles, so forget the Garrison. Come on, I think we're supposed to save the planet or something."

That was what everything pointed to. The messages in the cave, Shiro's return, Pidge's talk of some weapon on Earth. Fate had brought him back to his soulmate and it seemed also that it was pointing him towards something greater.

Keith had never really cared for Earth. With all the loss he had experienced, all the rejection; all of the memories of other planets, of warping through the stars, had seemed like such a better life than he could ever have on Earth. The first memory he'd ever had of his soulmate though, had been of his loss. In another life, Lance had died as they'd abandoned their home world. He had lost his soulmate as they had struggled to evacuate their planet as alien warships had bombarded it from orbit. This life might be a wash; he might never connect with his soulmate in this lifetime and he'd just have to wait until the next one, but he wasn't going to lose Lance like that. Keith would make sure of it.

Introductions were made all around and Shiro gave Keith a look when Lance introduced himself. Lance was somewhat starstruck by Shiro, and Pidge had inappropriate questions about his arm but seemed most concerned with the fate of the rest of his crew, which was a bit suspicious as far as Keith was concerned. Unfortunately, Shiro wasn't able to answer any of his questions. They didn't really have time to waste though, so they turned the conversation to the impending alien invasion.

It didn't take long when they all pooled their knowledge to come up with a plan. Pidge had apparently been picking up alien comm chatter for a while (and hadn't told anyone about it?), but they were able to put that together with what Shiro had to say to gather that aliens were on their way to Earth looking for some weapon called Voltron.

"Voltron," Keith murmured in wonder when Pidge first said it.

"Wait, you've heard of it too?" Hunk said.

Keith shook his head. It tickled at the back of his head, a memory from a lifetime long forgotten, but he couldn't tell them that. The thing was, he was certain he'd looked for Voltron before, had spent lifetimes looking for Voltron.

"Just sounds like something out of an anime," Keith said.

They went over everything Pidge had picked up over the comms and Hunk managed to figure out some manner of elemental signature and this stuff went over Keith's head but the long and short of it was that the two techno geeks worked together and jerry rigged a Voltron locator. Not one hour later they were zooming out in the direction of the caves where Keith had found all the drawings. Lance chattered the whole way about fighting off an alien invasion and how popular he'd be with the ladies once he'd saved the day. Keith tried not to be jealous of Lance's hypothetical girlfriends.

The locator took them to one of the caves that Keith had already been over, time and again.

Hunk was looking at the locator in consternation. "Uh, guys, I think it's below us."

Just then Lance touched one of the drawings of a lion and all of the drawings and writings on the walls lit up with a blue light. Suddenly the floor disappeared beneath them, and they all fell onto some sort of chute which plummeted them to a chamber below.

"Holy crow," Lance said. "Did you see that? Looks like I've got the magic touch," he said suggestively.

"Shut up and turn around," Pidge told Lance. Keith himself turned to look.

Everyone stared in silence for a moment at the giant mechanical Blue Lion that towered over them in the chamber they were in. It was encased in a blue particle barrier. Keith knew this lion, he'd seen it before. He struggled to remember as he walked forward and put his hand against the barrier. A memory surfaced of his soulmate dressed in white and blue armor waving him off as he climbed inside the mechanical giant.

"I feel like we're connected," Lance said. Keith pulled his hand away from the barrier, a bitter coil of jealousy forming in the pit of his stomach. He remembered his lion but he didn't remember Keith.

"Well, have you seen anything like this before?" Pidge asked.

Lance shook his head. "I just have this feeling. Is she looking at me?"

"Touch the barrier Lance," Keith said woodenly.

Lance walked up and put his hand up. The barrier disappeared and the great mechanical lion let out a roar that had everyone but Lance taking a step back. The Blue Lion knelt downwards and opened her mouth, a long ramp coming down. Lance let out a laugh and rushed forward without hesitation.

"Wait," Hunk said. "I didn't come here to get eaten by a great big lion."

"It's a ship," Lance's voice called from inside. Pidge took a step forward and then Hunk and the both of them went up the ramp into the jaws of the lion.

"Don't touch anything," Shiro called as he too walked towards the lion's open mouth. He paused and looked back to Keith. "Are you alright?" he asked.

"I'm coming," Keith said, following after.

Lance was already in the pilots seat, controls popping up and panels lighting up. There was very little warning before they took off and somehow, in an explosion of rubble, they were on the surface, running across the desert. There was quite a bit of yelling as everybody except Lance struggled to stay upright.

"Lance we need to stop," said a sick sounding Hunk.

"Alien invasion, my dude, I think we're going to space, actually," Lance called out. "Hold on to your butts."

"No, no, no," Hunk cried out as everything suddenly went vertical and they all literally had to hold on to the pilot seat as the lion rocketed into the sky. In a ridiculously short amount of time, they left the atmosphere and there they were. They were in space. Keith was in space and he stared in awe at the great expanse of stars unfiltered by the atmosphere of Earth. He had memories of it, sure, but he'd never seen it for himself.

"Oh, crap," Lance called out. "Big purple alien ship inbound."

Keith looked up and his blood turned to ice. 'Galra,' he thought at the sight of it. He remembered now whose ships had bombarded his home world and killed his soulmate so many lifetimes ago. He remembered the plasma bolt that had been wider than a sky scraper that had pierced down into the city. Never again. His knuckles were white as he gripped the back of Lance's chair.

"Destroy it," Keith said, swallowing a lump of rage in his throat as more memories flooded him. Lifetimes spent fighting the Galra. Lives lost fighting the Galra. As much wonder that Keith had remembered during his youth, of wondrous lives lived out among the stars there was also lives he could remember now of terror and bloodshed.

"No," Pidge said. "The other's could be on board."

Keith shook his head. "And they could destroy earth. Destroy it," he said again, insistently.

"Negative," Shiro said. "Do not engage."

"We can't let them attack Earth," Keith snarled angrily.

"You're right," Shiro said. "But if they came to Earth looking for this, then we need to lead them away from here. Destroying them will just bring more." He turned to Lance. "Get us out of here Cadet; away from Earth."

"On it," Lance said, and they shot forward, past the Galra ship. Keith wanted to fight, but he knew Shiro was right.

"Yeah, but go where?" Hunk asked.

"Is that a freakin wormhole," Pidge asked as some massive distortion in space opened up in front of them. Keith gasped. This was it.

"It is," Pidge exclaimed. "It is a wormhole. Look at it. Look at the edges. It's a fractal pattern. Of course it's a fractal pattern. Do you know what this means?"

"It means we're making a quick escape," Lance said.

"Bad idea, bad idea," Hunk said as they continued onwards towards the distortion.

"Lion wants to go in. I'm going in," Lance said decisively.

As crazy as everything was, Keith had faith that this was right. He knew it. He wasn't just leaving Earth, he was leaving the solar system. Whatever lay on the other end of that wormhole was his destiny, and he would be going with his soulmate and Shiro. The sum total of everyone he cared about was in this lion and Keith knew he could face whatever was coming.

There was nothing to indicate that they had passed through a wormhole besides the image on the screen.

"That's a planet," Pidge said, and he was right. There was an alien planet below them.

"What's happening, Lance?" Shiro asked.

"She wants to land," Lance said. "It's like she knows where to go."

The descent was much calmer than their take off, and as they approached land they all saw what looked like a futuristic castle, and Keith knew that castle. It was like trying to remember something from a show he'd watched when he was four, teasing at the edge of his memory, but he knew that castle.

'Alfor', he thought though he had no idea what it meant.

"Did they follow us through?" Shiro asked.

"Pidge?" Lance asked.

"I think this panel here's telemetry," Pidge said, pointing to one of the holo-displays.

Lance looked at it. "I'm going to say, no." He looked pleased with himself. "Well, gentlemen, there you have it. Lance Sanchez, the first person from Earth to pilot a ship out of the solar system. Did we just save the Earth? I fell like I just saved the Earth."

"And you'll never be in any history book," Pidge said.

Besides Lance's "Hey!" there wasn't anything to say to that. It had a very ominous undertone to it.

They touched down a few moments later and the five of them look around at each other while they tried to decide what to do next. The lion it seemed, though, had it's own ideas and it opened up and let down the ramp. Keith did a quick look around but there weren't any weapons he could see on board. He tried to unobtrusively stick close to Lance as they disembarked and made their way towards the castle. Whatever was going on, Keith didn't think a palace ball was in their future.

As they walked Keith struggled to remember as much as he could about the Galra. So far he could identify them in memories from at least twelve different past lives. Keith had always yearned for a life amongst the stars, but he was starting to realize that there was a lot worse out there waiting for him and his soulmate than he'd ever suffered on Earth.

* * *

A/N: So ends part one. Please subscribe to the series to get notified about part two. Part two will be a few chapters long and it's going to follow the first few episodes with my own spin. Part three will be taking a hard right away from cannon. I really hope you're all enjoying it. Please let me know what you think.


End file.
